Matthew 20:16

So the last shall be first, and the first last.

It was with this declaration that the parable began and ended. The grand lesson is that men do not deserve or merit salvation. In the case of the laborers, those who worked all day did not deserve their pay after having thrown it on the ground. That act forfeited their further right to it. In spite of their lack of merit, the good householder required them to pick it up, thus giving it to them in spite of their forfeiture. The ones who labored only an hour did not deserve their pay either. They had certainly done nothing to merit a day's wages. Not even their wonderful "attitude" entitled them to a day's pay. Their reward was as much of grace as was that of the bitter "firsters"! Some of the people of our own day who fancy that their sweet and pious attitude in some way entitles them to God's favor should take note of this. The householder had every right to have cut them off with a trifle instead of a whole day's pay.

People simply do not and cannot MERIT salvation. People do not merit salvation either by works or by attitudes of trust. 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. It is all of grace and not of debt; nor does that exclude obedience.