Matthew 21:23-46

Chapter 79

Prayer

Almighty God, thou dost see all things at once: there is nothing hidden from thine eyes: our hearts give up their secrets to thee as thou dost look upon us. All things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Thou art not searching for our faults, thou art looking for the return of our hearts to their harmony with thyself. Thy look has no fire of destruction in it, but is filled with the tears of tenderness, and often brightened by the expectation of loving hope. We have come to thine house to-day it is a step in the upward road, may we take the next, and all the rest following, and by steadfast perseverance be brought at last into the great eternal life.

We have come with hymns in our hearts and upon our lips because of thy care and love, thy pity and protection, and because our lives have been lived in thy goodness and have been held up by both thine hands, so that until this hour we have not fallen into the great darkness. We come to thee as the God of the Jew and of the Gentile, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the Father of them that know thee not, and the Redeemer of the ends of the earth. We know thee by Jesus Christ thy Son: he spoke to us concerning thee, he called thee Father, he spake of thy love, he told us that he himself came to express it in daily humiliation, in the revelation of eternal truth, in living, in dying, in sacrifice, in resurrection, and in priesthood, so that we come to thee by the living way and the only path, and we find access to "thy throne of grace because of thy Son who died and rose again for us.

Thou hast led us by a way that we knew not, and by paths we had not known or understood. Thou hast found for us bread in the wilderness and water in desert places. From our youth upward thou hast been our security, a Light that none could extinguish and a Defence that none could violate. We live and move and have our being in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We bless thee that through innumerable faults and sins, through manifold infirmities and transgressions, thou dost still lead the struggling soul onward towards complete sonship and final deliverance from the power of sin. Thou art mindful of us in the darkness as well as in the light. When the devil falls upon us with all his power, thou dost not permit him to deal upon us the fatal stroke. We are living to praise thee: our days are a continuance of thy favour, and before our eyes thou hast held forth the enchantment of a heavenly prospect. Wherein thou hast left us for a moment, gather us with everlasting kindness, Return, O Lord, to the many thousands of Israel; come back again, thou whose absence is an infinite loss, and fill with light the space thou hast thyself created.

We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us. We love his name, we are bound to his cross, his life is our hope, his death our sacrifice. He is to us the First and the Last, who was and is and is to come, Head over all, pre-eminent in Heaven, reigning over the universe as over a very little thing. Fill us with the fulness of his grace, inspire us with a sacred ambition to penetrate still more deeply into the tender mysteries of his truth, and may the sweet gospel of his cross be our consolation in every hour of life, and our hope and our triumph in the hour and article of death.

We give ourselves to thee again, and we pray for one another in all tender words, that according to each man's pain and need, some gift may be given from above. Send none away unblest, put in every man's heart a new hope, inspire every soul with unusual gladness, may thy Holy Spirit be the light of our understanding, the fire of our love and the inspiration of our will and purpose. Sanctify all affliction, infirmity, pain, trouble, and all the manifold discipline of this weary life. May we be the stronger for our weakness, may the hours we spend in darkness give us greater appreciation of thy light. Be with our friends who are with us from a distance. Be with the stranger within our gates, may he find that this is none other than his Father's house. Take away from him all sense of solitude, loneliness, and want of friendship, and seizing the idea of the universality of thy church, may he, by the power of sympathy and the divination of love, find in this house the fellowship of the saints.

Be with those who have gone away from us for a time, who are on the great sea, who are in far away lands, who think of us now and mentally unite their hymns with ours. The Lord's benediction make the sea quiet, and the Lord's smile make foreign lands as beautiful as home. Be with all little children: water thou the tender plants in thy garden, visit every nursery and speak some little word to little hearers, and be all through the house, in its uppermost places and in its lowest tenements, and from the highest to the lowest may there be a spirit of godly content and willing submission to thy purpose, and glad expectation of ultimate deliverance and coronation.

Speak with special graciousness to our sick ones, who can scarcely bear upon their cheek the breath of human love. Thou knowest the way to the sinking heart, thou canst speak to the closing ear; whilst life endures thy hold upon it is certain, and even when it passes away from our appeal, it stands but the freer and gladder in the inner light. Comfort those that mourn, may they be the richer for their tears, the stronger for their infirmities, and out of the buffeting of the wind, may they bring some solid and lasting strength.

This our prayer we pray in the one name, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom we took and with wicked hands hanged upon a tree, and slew. Amen.

Mat 21:23-46

23. And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority (always conferred by the scribes) dost thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?

24. And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things.

25. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say. From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?

26. But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet.

27. And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell (a virtual abdication of their office). And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.

28. But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard.

29. He answered and said, I will not: but afterwards he repented, and went.

30. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.

31. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily, I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

32. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward (did not even repent afterward), that ye might believe him.

33. Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

34. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.

35. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

36. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.

37. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.

38. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance,

39. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.

40. When the lord thereof of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?

41. They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked (miserable) men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures ( Psa 118:22 ), The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

43. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ( Isa 8:14-15 ): but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

45. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

46. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.

The Application of Parables

Observe that the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Jesus as he was teaching. They interfered with his work, and punctuated that work with a question with which they intended to destroy the effect of the doctrine. It is so that our best work is often interrupted and vilely punctuated by those who wish to hinder its deepest and most holy success. An ancient writer has told us that the wolf does not fly at a painted sheep. The wolf understands his purpose, though it be cruel, much better. So the Scribes and Pharisees and the elders of the people did not fly at a Christ who was doing nothing they laid wait for him, and according to their own estimate of their opportunity did they summon their savage energy to work out its malign purpose. But when otherwise or otherwhere could they have come upon him at all? He was always working, he was always teaching, he did but lift up his head for one moment, and then his face glowed as if he had been looking into a furnace when he said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" so that if evil-minded men had to come upon him at all, with any purpose of interrupting or destroying his work, they must of necessity come upon him in the intensity of a toil that seemed never to avail itself of relaxation.

How will he answer those men? First he will hear what they have to say to him. What is their question? The same question they have always been asking. They have but one question to ask who come thus to Christ. They may indeed devise for it a thousandfold variety of words, but centrally and substantially there is but one question which the enemy can ask for Christ "Who art thou, or by what authority dost thou work, or who gave thee this authority, or who is thy Father, or whence dost thou come?" He was the mystery of his time: he is the mystery of all time. He is there, and yet he seems to have no right to be there: his credentials are not written in official ink, or signed by the official hand, and yet there he stands, speaking revelations, working miracles, his smile a heaven, his frown a judgment, and people round about him in great thick files, asking who is he, whence came he, by what authority, quo warranto , who is this Man, and why does he speak these great thunder-blasts of judgment, or utter these quiet benedictions of light?

Observe how narrow is the question put to Christ. It is a question about authority. Men who ask narrow questions can never be in earnest upon great subjects. I venture thus to condense into one sentence what I might speak to you in words of many volumes. Coming to the Bible, coming to Christ, with any little, narrow, pedantic question, you never can grapple with the magnificent occasion or extract from the Book or the Man the vital secret.

Jesus will answer you according to your question. You yourself determine the speech of the Son of God; whenever you are prepared to begin he will begin with you. How he can tantalise, how he can test the inquirer, how he can spoil the spoiler, how he can hold up to suppressed ridicule the man who would come to him with taunting questions! If you have received no great broad gleaming answer of love and redemption from the Bible, it is because you have come to it with some little narrow question. Ask if the Book will submit itself to some theory of inspiration, and it may possibly mock you. Say to the Book, "I have a theory by which I would test thee," and the Book will be dumb with silence you cannot break. But come frankly, with the nakedness of absolute moral destitution, without excuse or plea or self-defence, and knock with bruised fingers upon the door of your Father's house, and angels will open it, and all the store of the house will be yours, and your very hunger will be turned into the supreme blessing of your life. Ye have not because ye ask not, or because ye ask amiss. Had these men of the text set themselves down like so many docile children saying, "O Peasant of Galilee, Man of Nazareth, Mystery of the time, yet gentle, wise, true, beneficent, tell us what is in thine heart," he would have answered them as he answered Nicodemus. Nicodemus came to him in the dark, and Christ showed him all the wealth of the stars, and made the heaven so bright that it was no longer a nocturnal interview, but a conversation held in a light above the brightness of the sun. You would have more revelation if you had treated the Bible properly: you would have ampler entrance into the upper courts if you had gone to God with some bold prayer of penitence and high inspiration of expectant and contrite love.

Let us see how far Jesus Christ is true to the development through which we have watched him in all these studies. How will he answer men now? His teaching was always determined by the time and circumstances surrounding him. Look how true he is to himself. He is still going to make parables, but the parables represent him in a new light. When we studied the thirteenth chapter of this gospel, we thought we had passed through the picture-gallery of the church, and seen all its most beauteous representations of light and shade and hue and tone. We were charmed with the infinite suggestiveness and fertility of the Man's invention and power of utterance. So when we closed the thirteenth chapter, we were as men who descended from a great gallery of divinely painted pictures, and behold in this very twenty-first chapter we have parables again. But observe how the Speaker of them has changed. In these parables you catch the tone of judgment : here prejudicial parables as well as parables illustrative of great historical and moral truth. Never can you catch this Man off his guard; his word is always true to his feeling. Nearer the cross now than ever he was before, his word is accentuated by sharper emphasis, and through all the beauty of his parable there gleams some forelight of the great judgment fire.

In these facts find the proof of the Lord's deity. In such subtle consistency as this find at least the beginning of an argument which will land you in the conviction that, whilst never man spake like this Man, the unusualness of his speech came out of the unusualness of his nature. He was the Son of God, the only Revealer of the Father, his companion through all eternity, the Angel of the Covenant in one age, the Wisdom of another, the Coming One of all time God the Son.

Observe how he speaks to these men judicially, and how all the while he proceeds along the safe and obvious basis of reason and justice. These two parables, as well as the answer about John, are illustrations of the rational justice upon which God's kingdom amongst men is based. "A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, the first!" He put a case before them which was apparently not religious. Here we find our right and title oftentimes, to occupy secular or outside ground, in illustrating and defending the gospel of Christ. In such parables as these, we find the range of the great Teacher's tether. He is not bound within a few inches: he may take his stand on the uttermost point of the horizon, and finding an admission there he may apply it to the whole course and tenor of human life within the ample circle, until it creates a judgment-seat before which to try the sons of men.

Here is hope for some of us. The narrow technical mind can never repent. This comes out of the very necessity of the case. Narrowness and technicality never can get into the region of emotion. Find a man who is a stickler for a form of words, merely because it is venerable, and you find a man who is incapable of enthusiasm, and incapability of enthusiasm is only another form of the solemn truth that some men are incapable of repentance. Beware how you become the slaves of merely literal forms and special places and peculiar ceremonies: do not become men of the letter, after this narrow sense of the term. Here you find men who are anxious about mere authority they never can be other than purists and pedants. You may be correct and yet incorrect at the same time. You may be right and may be wrong in the very same breath. If a man should say that the earth stands still, he is right within given limits, and yet he totally misrepresents the condition of the earth when he puts it before his mind, and before the observation of others as a stationary body. Consider it well: the earth stands still and I can build upon it. So far you are literally correct, and yet it is not correct to represent the earth as standing still for one solitary moment. So a man may be a purist and a pedant in the letter, and may know nothing about the infinite beauty and suggestiveness and redeemingness of the inner gospel of Christ.

Do not look at the literal authority, look at the things that are done, and if the things are done, acknowledge them, and do not say that you pay more respect to the authority than to the accomplishment of the fact. If a man is converted in his inner thinking, in his moral purpose, in the whole set and tone of his mind, I will not inquire into the authority of the man through whose instrumentality that grand fact was accomplished. He may have the right to say to me in all justice, "Believe me for the work's sake." That was Jesus Christ's own appeal. When a man comes before you with nothing but authority, and no issues follow to attest and complete it, then set light by what he terms his credentials.

Now these men were men of authority, the victims of tradition, the creatures of conventionality, and therefore it was impossible for them ever to change their minds. Take care how you join that company: you will be clever but not great, you will have skill within a limited scope, but to your ability there will be no range, no mystery of distance, no suggestiveness of perspective you will be simply strategic, clever, skilful, acrobatic, but wanting in the infinite genius that lays hold of God at unexpected places, and finds tabernacles for Him where others had suspected but the wastes of the wilderness.

On the other hand the impulsive man is always repenting. He said at first, "I will not." That was impulsive. I knew by the very urgency of his tone that he was a better man than he represented himself to be. If he had uttered that sentence slowly but with deliberate, lingering emphasis, I should have had but little confidence in his change but no sooner was the proposition made to him that he should go and work in the vineyard, than flashingly, with the instancy of lightning, he said, "I will not." I knew by his tone that he would go! There are some men that misrepresent themselves that cannot be understood as to their furthest and deepest meaning. Have faith in some kinds of bad men. Have no faith in some kinds of so-called good men. Understand the character in its inner essence and substance, and then, though there be a thousand infirmities and manifold positive sins, as in the case of Abraham and David and Peter, and all the great princes and leaders of the Church, there will be such an ultimate attestation that the divine seed was in the heart as no true witness can dispute or contravene.

Do I speak to any man who has wildly told God that he would not be good? I have faith in that man. Let us cheer him: I like him in many aspects of his character: he did not mean the rudeness or the violence or the blasphemy he will think better of it and come to better terms. Do I speak to some who are always falling down, who begin to pray and forget midway what they intended to say? Do I speak to any poor bruised, broken heart, that is always bringing itself right into collision with some cruel obstacle or hindrance? I would speak comfortably to such. I have known such among the very best people in the world. Do not be discouraged or cast down. You ask no little peddling questions about authority, you do not go into the question of official ink and prescriptive signature you are real, and you want reality, and when you have done your worst, no man condemns you so much as you condemn yourself. I shall find you one day with your eyes melted into great hot tears, standing a little way outside the door, asking if after all you may not come in and come in you shall, come in you will! If men were turned out because of errors and sins like yours, heaven itself would be but a wooden place filled with wooden saints. No, in you and through you Christ shall come into his great broad human inheritance. Is the seed in you, is the right purpose in you, when you sin do you judge yourself and send yourself to hell? When you have got wrong do you sentence your soul to a lake of fire and brimstone where the devils are and the hot chains and the eternal burnings? If so, Christ shall yet have hold of you none shall pluck you out of his hand. Out upon those who cry for mere authority and stand upon official conventionalism in the things pertaining to this inner kingdom; and a welcome, broad as the firmament, bright as the sun, to every prodigal heart that comes in and says, "I said I would not go, but I want to come, after all. Open the door and let me in." He will work well because he means it well.

"Hear another parable," said Christ, which was inviting the men into a second thunderstorm. Hear another parable it was asking them to bind themselves again to the whipping-post till he scourged them with thongs of scorpions. He calls it a parable it burns like a judgment. He says it is a picture, but as they look, the fire bursts out of it, and scorches their beholding faces. In every Gospel there is a judgment, as in every offer of mercy there is the possibility of a development of obstinacy that will end in penalty. Hear another parable. If he had said so to us in the thirteenth chapter of the gospel, we should have said, "Yes, and gladly ten thousand more, for they are like new stars hung up on the background of night's gloom," but now we hesitate. Another parable? Another fire, another judgment, another revelation of ourselves to ourselves!

Then comes the parable of the householder who planted the vineyard, claimed the fruit, sent his servants for it, last of all despatched his son to bring the fruit of the husbandmen, who acted rudely, violently, and with fatal cruelty. Then said Jesus, "What shall be done to these men?" It was another secular instance, it was another instance of his extra-ecclesiastical or theological reasoning, and these men, who were sharp in the marketplace, clever in following the lines of an analogy, and a jagged kind of rude justice towards ill-behaving servants, admitted that if the case were as the Speaker put it, there was nothing for those miserable husbandmen but to be destroyed. Jesus said, "Have ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes"? The rejection was but for the moment, but God's elections will come up in the outgo and expenditure of the ages. He works by centuries, he breathes aeons and epochs of a thousand years apiece, but he surely brings his purpose to its culmination.

He did not himself apply the matter further. When they began to think of it, they said, "He means us. Kill him. We dare not, or the people would kill us." Sometimes in judging a case of human justice, we award the penalty to ourselves, and inflict the judgment upon our own hearts. Let us take care lest we bring upon ourselves the double damnation of admitting the logic in a secular case and endeavouring to elude its application in spiritual instances.

Still he is judge then; and yet I could not leave these parables with any hope, if I did not search further into them to see if the dear, sweet-souled, loving-hearted Christ were not in them somewhere not in the authority, not in the son that would go and did not, not in the wicked husbandmen yet he must be here somewhere, I know he must even yet speak some sweet gospel word. Here it is: "The publicans and the harlots believed him: the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you: the kingdom of God shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." There is the same Christ, the Christ that cast out devils, the Christ that gave a new chance in life to the woman taken in adultery, the Christ that expelled from the heart of Mary Magdalene the tenants that diabolised her. This is the Christ of hope this is the Man that dined with publicans and sinners. Fearful as coming from his lips at that time this utterance to the priests, the chief-priests, the elders of the people, as who should say, "Gentlemen, so-called in your own esteem, you who hold the keys of the church and the writings of the sanctuary, ye shall never go into the secret, sacred place, but shall be driven out, and publicans, sinners, harlots; bruised, wounded prodigals, naked, shoeless, coatless, penniless all tears, all sorrow with such outcasts shall God fill his house, and ye proud mockers shall be damned."

Selected Notes

Matthew 21:27 "And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was." "They answered." Wicked regard not a lie, serving their purpose. " Could not tell." Gr. they did not know.

He compelled them to pronounce their own sentence, as incompetent to fill Moses' seat.

If they cannot answer one here, can they a thousand? Job 9:3 . Caught in a hard alternative; extricated by an act of desperation.

They were thus convicted by all of gross hypocrisy.

Elements of their future vengeance were slowly gathering.

Before the Lord, all the world must keep silence. Habakkuk 2:20 .

These "great knowers" who have always their "we know" at hand, for once, after their arrogant question, say with shame, in the presence of the people, " We know not."

Many a so-called "honest doubter," against his own conviction, resembles them, i.e., they know it well, but " will not say it."

Thousands will say anything, rather than " we are wrong."

Gehazi, Ananias, and Sapphira have more imitators than Peter or Paul.

The unrenewed often feel more than they confess.

Knowing the Gospel true, they want courage to confess it.

They know Christianity is right, but are too proud to say it.

They pretend to judge Christ's mission, and cannot tell even that of John.

Those who imprison the truth stifle conviction.

This declaration made them cease to be a Sanhedrim.

After this they were to Jesus only as usurpers.

The people could have answered without hesitation.

Rulers' refusal showed a want of courage and honesty.

Jesus and John were not their kind of prophets.