Robin Hardy Online
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This is the hardest of the parables of the kingdom. There are many side issues that may lead us astray if we try to follow every dim trail. Let us confine ourselves to a few of the main issues.
I. Idleness Is Rebuked
1. "Why stand ye here idle all day?" The scene is a common one to any city where the unemployed congregate, hoping to find work.
2. The application to spiritual things is that there are so many who stand empty handed, finding nothing to do to help bring in the kingdom of God. There are so many fruitless church members, so many undeveloped powers, so many whose lives are purely negative.
3. There is so much to be done. The world is like a field, overgrown with noxious weeds, or it is white, ready to be harvested. There are so many sick to be nursed, sufferers to be eased, sorrowing to be comforted, ignorant to be taught, weak to be strengthened, wrecks to be salvaged. So much to be done, and so few who can see the need. And multitudes stand idle, crying there is nothing to do. Nobody needs me.
II. Workmen Are Called
1. "Go ye into the vineyard." In other words, "I have a place for you; I can use you."
2. There is a place in God's work for every man who has a willingness to work. There may be a problem of unemployment in America, but there is no such problem in the kingdom of God, except the ones who do not want to work.
3. God's call comes at all seasons of life. To the young, the middle aged, the old. Even down to the last day of life.
4. The ones entering early, with a long life of service and usefulness, do not complain that they have served longer than others, but they rejoice that it has been their privilege to do so.
III. Labor Is Rewarded
1. "Whatsoever is right I will give you." The rewards are as sure as is God's justice. We must leave that to Him.
2. Our heavenly reward is not a bargaining with God. The salvation of the old man saved the last day of his life will be as sure and as sweet as it will be to one saved early in life.
3. The rewards there will not be determined on the long hours, but on the underlying motives, and the spirit of the worker.
4. There will be no competition in religious things, nor any envying, nor any monopoly as is found on earth.
from Sermons in the Making by W.W. Melton; posted Aug. 15, 2007
