But if this be so, there is here absolute certainty that our Lord, on the very Sabbath in which He cast out the unclean spirit from the man in the synagogue of Capernaum, immediately after quitting the synagogue, entered the house of Peter, and that there and then He healed Peter's wife's mother of the fever. Here is the account with the labourers. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink: Their answer (We are able) seems to come a little too quick. . Had all the sinners that ever lived in the world been consigned to hell, they could not have discharged the claims of justice. The strange thing is that instinctively the world itself has accepted these standards. They in turn will give me to the Gentiles, the Romans. Does this scribe offer to follow Jesus? Now notice, the mother is the one doing the speaking, but the boys are right there behind her. That the recompence of reward will be given to the saints, not according to the time of their conversion, but according to the preparations for it by grace in this world; not according to the seniority (Genesis 43:33), but according to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The idea is that His people were in bondage as slaves, and He paid their price. Deliver Him to the Gentiles: Jesus knew that the religious leaders of the Jews did not have authority to carry out capital punishment themselves; yet sometimes they executed men despite this prohibition (Acts 7:54-60). Thus, whatever the peculiarity of the new blessings, the old thing could be taken up, though upon new grounds, and, of course, on the confession that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. When do you suppose these conversations actually occurred, if we go to the question of their date? But Jesus called them to Himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. To the proud inhabitant of Jerusalem, both one and the other were but a choice and change within a land of darkness. And if those who in the last moment come into the kingdom of God, God rewards them, and they receive the reward for their place in the kingdom. We seem completely borne away from the ordinary level of our gospel to the higher region of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Particular epochs in Luke are noted with great care; but, speaking now of the general course of the Lord's life, a little attention will discover, from the immensely greater preponderance paid to the consideration of time in the second gospel, that there we have events from first to last given to us in their consecutive order. He was ignorant of himself, because ignorant of God, and imagined that it was only a question of man's doing good for God. And so they were actually thinking evil, because of His good. The market-place is a place of concourse, and there Wisdom cries (Proverbs 1:20; Proverbs 1:21); it is a place of sport, there the children are playing (Matthew 11:16; Matthew 11:16); and the gospel calls us from vanity to seriousness; it is a place of business, of noise and hurry; and from that we are called to retire. What an anticipation of the walk by faith, not by sight, in which the Gentiles, when called, ought to have glorified God, when the rejection of the Messiah by His own ancient people gave occasion to the Gentile call as a distinct thing! They did not understand what was happening, but they could see in every line of Jesus' body the struggle of his soul. He who had just confessed the glory of the Lord would not hear His Master speaking thus of His going to the cross (by which alone the Church, or even the kingdom, could be established), and sought to swerve Him from it. The third and fourth legions had the same advantage in their turns. They worked while the others were idle. The delivered demoniacs are, to my mind, clearly the foreshadow of the Lord's grace in the latter days, separating a remnant to Himself, and banishing the power of Satan from this small but sufficient witness of His salvation. It is tragic that we have a professional ministry that so often seeks people to cater to it, rather than to realize that they are the servants of all. The first came to an agreement with the master; they had a contract; they said, "We work, if you give us so much pay." He was to be scourged; few tortures in the world compared with the Roman scourge, and there we see the suffering of physical pain. The apostles were sent forth at the first and third hour of the gospel day; they had a first and a second mission, while Christ was on earth, and their business was to call in the Jews; after Christ's ascension, about the sixth and ninth hour, they went out again on the same errand, preaching the gospel to the Jews only, to them in Judea first, and afterward to them of the dispersion; but, at length, as it were about the eleventh hour, they called the Gentiles to the same work and privilege with the Jews, and told them that in Christ Jesus there should be no difference made between Jew and Greek. 1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. At its close we see the leper approaching the Lord, after He had been preaching throughout Galilee and casting out devils. Imagine a slave being given leadership! (Carson). a. Jesus stood still: Nothing could stop Him on His journey to Jerusalem; yet He stood still to answer a persistent plea for mercy. Such was and is man. Possibly the first felt their vanity wounded by being paid after the others. Read full chapter. There is nothing more tragic in this world than a man who is unemployed, a man whose talents are rusting in idleness because there is nothing for him to do. II. (Matthew 20:11-15) The complaint of the early workers. It is the death-blow to human tradition and ordinance in divine things, and in reality depends on the truth of the absolute ruin of man a truth which, as we see, the disciples were very slow to recognize. i. . They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' But, from first to last, what a trial of spirit, and what triumph! And Peter quoting Isaiah looking back at that scourging said, "by His stripes, ye were, past tense, healed"( 1 Peter 2:24 ). Thus, and after the tenderest sort, there is that which evidences the Messiah on earth present to heal His people who appeal to Him; and the Jew, above all counting upon His bodily presence demanding it, I may say, according to the warrant of prophecy, finds in Jesus not merely the man, but the God of Israel. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem: This was not a surprise to the disciples. That means that James and John were full cousins of Jesus; and it may well have been that they felt that this close relationship entitled them to a special place in his Kingdom. When it came time to pay the workers, the men hired last were paid first and paid for a full day of work! He tells him that those he envied should fare as well as he did; "I will give unto this last, even as unto thee; I am resolved I will." Rudolf Bultmann writes: "In the Cross of Christ Jewish standards of judgment and human notions of the splendour of the Messiah are shattered." Jesus will use this story to answer a question from Matthew 19:27: See, we have left all and followed You. The Lord now lets them know their mad folly, and warns them that this blasphemy was about to culminate in a still deeper, deadlier form when the Holy Ghost should be spoken against as He had been. Though Cushi gets the start of Ahimaaz, yet Ahimaaz, choosing the way of the plain, outruns Cushi. What instrument so suitable? It is but a day's work that is here done. We have, first, the sower sowing the word. It was a scorned Messiah who, when rejected of His own people, Israel, turned to the Gentiles by the will of God: it was One who could look upon publicans and sinners anywhere. But first appears the new and great fact, that Christ was going to build a new building, His assembly, on the truth and confession of Himself, the Son of God. [1.] Jesus uses a kind of gradation. First of these comes the treasure hidden in the field, for which the man sells all he had, securing the field for the sake of the treasure. [2.] There are two great lessons here. It is my will to give to this last man the same as to you. Thus, in the chapter before us, we have a very comprehensive sketch of the Lord's manifestation from that time, and in type going on to the end of the age. They looked for the raging Lion of Judah; they received the gentle Lamb of God. ii. He was to be condemned to death; there we see the suffering of injustice, which is very hard to bear. C. G. Montefiore calls this parable "one of the greatest and most glorious of all." Next, He lays bare the capricious unbelief of man, only consistent in thwarting every thing and one that God employs for his good; then, His own entire rejection where He had most laboured. ", To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. b. In calling the labourers, they must begin from the last, and so to the first. And someone said, "Jesus is going by." 14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. and what had the Son of David to do with a Canaanite? . Oh, for grace so to bow and bless God, even when our little travail seems in vain! Before he goes to Church let him visit the hospital. The meek and trustful spirit is to be desired; so also is the worker; but neither class of people, nor yet another class combining the virtues of both, can in any degree merit salvation. God turns away none that are willing to be hired, for yet there is room. The nature of envy; It is an evil eye. When the account was taken; when the evening was come, then, as usual, the day-labourers were called and paid. (v) Here also is the generosity of God. They could probably tell the direction in the flow, the crowd, which direction He was, but they began to cry out to Jesus. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, Why have you been standing here idle all day? They said to him, Because no one hired us. He said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.. If it be so, it is surely a ground of thankfulness to God; for it turns a stumbling-block into an evidence of the perfection of Scripture. Observe. i. Those that have such a journey to go, had need set out betimes, the sooner the better. When He uttered the words, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me," it is to me evident that there was an allusion to the wavering let it be but for a moment of John's soul. God could not be limited by a question of place; His word was enough. Copyright 2019 by Zondervan. Historical Books International Standard Version "In the same way, the last will be first, and the first will be last, because many are called, but few are chosen." Poetical Books Yet most people today have never heard of John Gill. It does not seem exactly as a pictorial view of what the Lord was doing, or going to do, but rather the repeated pledge, that they were not to suppose that the evil He had judged in the elders of Jerusalem, or the grace freely going out to the Gentiles, in any way led Him. mother of the sons of Zebedee ( Matthew 27:56). Zion may say of the Lord who laboured in vain, whom the nation abhorred, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." "The foxes," says He, "have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." Usernames should only contain letters, numbers, dots, dashes, or underscores. But Luke saith, they understood none of these things; that is, surely they believed none of them, the saying was hid from them. (Poole), v. When our Lord told the twelve that he would die, they imagined that it was a parable, concealing some deep mystery. And what makes this still more striking, is the certainty that the kingdom, bright as it is, is by no means the thing nearest to Jesus. You don't know what the challenge/date is until you scratch off a square similar to a scratch-off lottery ticket. It was going on, then, to the bitter end, and surely not without such suffering and sorrow as holy, unselfish, obedient love alone can know. Thus, the fourth chapter of Mark coincides, marked with such data as can leave no doubt. Hugh Martin reminds us that a great teacher used to say that the saddest words in all Shakespeare's plays are the words: "Othello's occupation's gone." The leper approaches the Lord with homage, but with a most inadequate belief in His love and readiness to meet his need. Finally, he was to be crucified; there we see the ultimate suffering of death. Of course, both do preserve chronological order when it is compatible with the objects the Holy Spirit had in inspiring them; but in both the order of time is subordinated to still greater purposes which God had in view. Not but that there is a counsel in every will of God, and what seems to us to be done arbitrarily, will appear at length to have been done wisely, and for holy ends. Cookie Notice: A reaction might especially be expected when Jesus said He would be betrayed. It is easy to condemn the disciples, but the faith and the loyalty which lay behind the ambition must never be forgotten. There is no incident which so demonstrates their invincible faith in Jesus. Not so. Only tradition will not do this work, nor will human thoughts or feelings. Clarke's Commentary. Note, Evening time is the reckoning time; the particular account must be given up in the evening of our life; for after death cometh the judgment. A Gentile (indeed, any mind not under any kind of legal prejudice or difficulty) would be far more moved by a detailed account of what was more, conspicuous. Sufferers for Christ in the latter days, shall have the same reward with the martyrs and confessors of the primitive times, though they are more celebrated; and faithful ministers now, the same with the first fathers. Hold out, faith, and patience, yet a little while. "Can a woman forget her sucking child? John the Baptist was sanctified from the womb, and therefore great (Luke 1:15); Timothy from a child (2 Timothy 3:15); Obadiah feared the Lord from his youth. a. range of evangelical traditions, all of the ideas and principles conveyed And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach." Lastly, Here is the application of the parable (Matthew 20:16; Matthew 20:16), in that observation which occasioned it (Matthew 19:30; Matthew 19:30); So the first shall be last, and the last first. i. But when he came to the first, they supposed that they should have received more; but they likewise received every man a penny. The Lord then had been shown such as He was towards Israel, had Israel in their leprosy come to Him, as did the leper, even with a faith exceedingly short of that which was due to His real glory and His love. It was really after the transfiguration recorded in chapter 17 of our gospel. And, 2. [There is what I call a clear, unmistakable note of time.] His assessment is quite simply--how many people has he helped? but it was far too much for the young man. But the single eye of Jesus at once detects the snare of Satan into which natural thought led, or at least exposed, Peter to fall. In this work we must not be slothful, not loiterers, but labourers, working, and working out our own salvation. Try to discourage them from seeking Jesus. This furnishes occasion to the Pharisees to vent their unbelief: to them nothing is so offensive as grace, either in doctrine or in practice. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? d T. Hieros. The details, found elsewhere, of her being at the point of death then, before reaching the house, the news that she was dead, are not here. What can be conceived so perfectly to illustrate the great design of the gospel of Matthew? said the Lord; and then stretched forth His hand toward His disciples with the words, "Behold my mother and my brethren! "I have seen the children of the world to come (elsewhere (e) it is, of the chamber), , "and they are few".''. At that time Jesus answered, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. A Roman coin was once found with the picture of an ox on it; the ox was facing two things--an altar and a plough; and the inscription read: "Ready for either." he said. (Matthew 20:20-21) The mother of James and John asks for a place of special status for her sons. 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.(A), 17Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. However imperfect it may be, if faith is there, Jesus accepts it. And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. Let not those that come in at the eleventh hour, be put behind the rest, but, lest they should be discouraged, call them first. (G) On the third day(H) he will be raised to life!(I). Chapter 8, which opens the portion that comes before us tonight, is a striking illustration as well as proof of the method which God has been pleased to employ in giving us the apostle Matthew's account of our Lord Jesus. 3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. Yet is He the Son of man who hath power on earth to forgive sins; and He uses His authority. Well, he did not come to get your service; he came to give you his services; not that you might first do him honor, but that he might show you mercy. (Spurgeon). THE FALSE AND THE TRUE AMBITION ( Matthew 20:20-28 ), 20:20-28 At that time the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons, kneeling before him, and asking something from him.
Route 1 North Accident Today,
Kenmore Manufacture Date By Serial Number,
Georgia Governor Election 2022 Polls,
Chrysler Profit Sharing 2022,
Articles M