Matthew 20:11-16. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good-man of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour. and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them. and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil. because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
The great principle of election in divine sovereignty will crop up, not in one place, but in many. God will have us know that he is Master, and that in the kingdom of grace he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and in the distribution of that grace he will give according to his own good pleasure; and the moment we begin to murmur or set up claims he answers us at once with, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?" Yet that unevangelical spirit, that ungospel spirit of fancying that we have some Sort of claim or right will crone in, and it must be sternly repressed. It is of grace - of grace alone - of grace to begin with, of grace to go on with, of grace to close with: and human merit must not be allowed to put a single finger anywhere. "Where is boasting, then?" says the Apostle. "It is excluded." It is shut out - the door shut in its face. It must not come in. If you and I serve God throughout a long life, we shall certainly have much greater happiness in life than those can have who come to Christ only at the last. But, as far as the gospel blessing is concerned, which Christ gives, it is the same salvation which the newly-born Christian enjoys as that which the most advanced believer is now enjoying. It is to every man the penny, hearing the King’s own impress.
Matthew 20:11-16. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good-man of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour. and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them. and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil. because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
The great principle of election in divine sovereignty will crop up, not in one place, but in many. God will have us know that he is Master, and that in the kingdom of grace he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and in the distribution of that grace he will give according to his own good pleasure; and the moment we begin to murmur or set up claims he answers us at once with, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?" Yet that unevangelical spirit, that ungospel spirit of fancying that we have some Sort of claim or right will crone in, and it must be sternly repressed. It is of grace - of grace alone - of grace to begin with, of grace to go on with, of grace to close with: and human merit must not be allowed to put a single finger anywhere. "Where is boasting, then?" says the Apostle. "It is excluded." It is shut out - the door shut in its face. It must not come in. If you and I serve God throughout a long life, we shall certainly have much greater happiness in life than those can have who come to Christ only at the last. But, as far as the gospel blessing is concerned, which Christ gives, it is the same salvation which the newly-born Christian enjoys as that which the most advanced believer is now enjoying. It is to every man the penny, hearing the King’s own impress.