Septuagesima Sunday

Matthew 20:1-16

THE GREATNESS OF DIVINE GRACE IN THE WORK OF SALVATION

Grace. What depth of merciful love in the heart of God does not this word open up to us! Who can empty this fountain? What sweetness, what blessedness for poor sinners, for real sinners, does not this word contain! Who can fully grasp, to say nothing of describe divine grace? While the love of God em-braces all creatures and he feels and shows the most sincere pity and compassion toward all gloomy people, yet grace means that he has mercy upon sinners and has resolved upon a plan of salvation for them. It was by grace that he sent his only-begotten Son and through his blood reconciled the world unto himself. It was by grace that he revealed his "mystery of godliness" [1 Ti. 3:16] in the Gospel. It is out of grace that he exhorts through his messengers, "Be ye reconciled to God," (2 Co. 5:2O) and sends his Holy Spirit in order that he shall make us partakers in the salvation in Christ through the Means of Grace. Fin-ally, it is by grace that the Holy Spirit calls, enlightens, regenerates and sanctifies sinners; in other words, saves them through faith in Jesus Christ.

Thus grace is just for sinners and suits sinners alone. Were it not for sin, we would be blessed. Then we would need no grace. But if you are a sinner, and we are all sinners and are lacking the praise we should have for God, then you need grace as The One Thing Needful. "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" is all which the publican asks for. Lk. 18:13. If you have God's grace, my friend, then you have everything! "My grace is sufficient for you," Christ says to Paul. (2 Co. 12:9.) If you are lacking grace, then in the midst of the greatest abundance you are after all lacking everything. How poor and miserable was not the rich man who "fared sumptuously every day"! (Lk. 16:19.) On the other hand, if you feel yourself to be the greatest sinner there is still grace for you, grace to make you righteous and blessed as if you had never sinned.

This grace of God is in Christ Jesus. It was acquired by him and is shown to us for his sake alone. It can therefore only be made one's own in Christ Jesus through faith in him. But this faith is also by grace, a gift of God, just as the continued appropriation, preservation of faith, and the life which is created through the appropriation and the streams of living water which constantly flow from it, are God's works of grace so that everything is "by grace alone," both this that we were made alive and this that we live in him, work, strive and suffer for him, yes, also that we die in him, so that it is God who works by grace, so that whether we live or die we are the Lord's, his people who are raised from the dead, who die no more but live for ever, or this, that we shall live and reign for ever.

What mercy, dear hearers, that this time of the visitation of grace is granted us in which the blessed Gospel of salvation in Christ, salvation for poor sinners, is proclaimed to us and his gifts of grace are offered to us! O, that none of us might neglect this precious time of grace, not despise this unfathomable great love of God, not take this wonderful message of salvation in vain, not willfully resist the Spirit's mighty work and not thoughtlessly let go of the hand of grace either which might have grasped us and snatched us like a firebrand out of the fire! Woe unto us if we live and die without the grace of God! The Word of God says of such people that their worm never dies and their fire is never put out.

However, it is difficult, my dear friends, both to grasp and to hold firmly to this hand of grace and to receive grace for grace from it, to comfort oneself through it alone, to build on it alone, to live by it alone and to die in it! How much is there not which holds the poor heart back from grasping it, and if it is grasped by it, how easily does it not fall into doubt and hopelessness, and will forsake it, especially in distress and temptation! How inclined is not the heart to want to rely upon itself and to keep flesh for its arm, to seeking its own glory, yes, to placing a value in that which has been by grace, or something it has done, and to finding in it a certain worthiness for obtaining grace and the promised reward of grace!

Just before our text it tells about a person who refuses the grace which was offered and who turns away from the kingdom of God because he has more love for and confidence in his own kingdom than in the Lord, (Mt. 19:21.22) and of another man, Peter, who succumbs to the temptation to think well of himself and sees a merit which is worthy of a special reward in the fact that he has left everything and followed Jesus, although that obviously was a work of grace and a proof of grace for which he does not have him- self to boast of but God alone to thank for it. (Mt. 19:27.) After Jesus has promised those who have left everything for his sake a hundredfold again and everlasting life, we hear that he directs an earnest warn-ing to Peter in the somber words, "But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first," (Mt. 19:3O) as though he wants to say: "Be careful, my dear Peter, that you do not pride yourself on the grace of which you have become partaker, and you thus go from being among the first to being among the last." After that Jesus sets forth for instruction and help for Peter and everyone who is brought into a similar situation the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.

This parable certainly presents great difficulties when in expounding it a person wants to get the various parts of it to harmonize with each other. Interpreters therefore differ widely with each other. However, this isn't of such great importance when a person just does not contradict the clear teaching of Scripture in any point. In the meantime this much is indisputable that the main point in the parable is what Paul expresses with the words, "By grace are you saved … not by works, lest any man should boast," (Ep. 2:8.9.) That is clearly evident from that question of Peter which obviously gave the occasion for the parable: "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed you; what shall we have therefore?" (Mt. 19:27) and from the Lord's an-swer to Peter: "But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first," and it is also with these very words that Jesus concludes our parable. We will therefore consider in the light of the Gospel:

THE GREATNESS OF DIVINE GRACE IN THE WORK OF SALVATION.

Lord, to this end grant us your Holy Spirit's aid! Amen.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morn-ing to hire laborers into his vineyard." This is how the Savior begins our parable. Just as it says here that the householder went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard and later that he continued doing that all day, that is also the way it is in God's kingdom of grace, the church, the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Now what was it really, my dear friends, which prompted the householder to do that? It was certainly not any request either direct or indirect on the part of those who were hired. Even if they heard of the vineyard they didn't regard it as any good fortune to become laborers in it and they didn't worry about it. But per-haps the fact that they were standing idle prompted him? Well, yes, in so far as it awakened his sincere pity, that was the reason that he hired them. Because he knew that they would fare badly and they would perish miserably if they should be standing idle all day, their whole lifetime. On the other hand, it is un-reasonable to suppose that the fact that they were standing idle and were doing nothing was of any merit in the eyes of the householder by which he was prompted to hire them and to pay them wages. But per-haps the fact that they allowed themselves to be hired can have prompted him to hire them? Every man who has hired laborers will say that it is just as unreasonable to suggest such a thing.

No, the thing which prompted the householder to be so persistent in hiring all those men whom he found idle, even when there was only a short time left for them to work in, was obviously his sincere de-sire to further their good fortune and welfare, along with the fact that he really wanted to have the credit and satisfaction of seeing his vineyard well cultivated. And that is exactly the way it is now with the invi-tation to the kingdom of God on earth. It is totally a kingdom of grace, where grace reigns from beginning to end. The householder, our heavenly Father, goes out, compelled by boundless grace and mercy, in man-kind's early childhood to call laborers into his vineyard, lost sinners to his kingdom of grace. He has planted a vineyard so that it should bear fruit. "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts," says the prophet Isai- ah, "is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant," (5:7) and in the 27th chapter the con-cern of the Lord for it is described, "In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." (2.3.) He has a right to ask: "What more should I have done with my vineyard than I have done with it?"

The heavenly Father has planted his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as the true, living vine in the parched soil of mankind, so that we shall be grafted into him and as living branches in him bear fruit. Long beforehand, right after the Fall, he was promised as the Seed of the Woman who should crush the serpent's head, afterward as the offspring of Abraham in whom all the generations of the earth should be blessed. Already at that time therefore we see the heavenly Father being merciful to the whole human race. In order to prepare the way for this plan of his for the salvation of the race, he chooses his Israel and he plants a vineyard, the kingdom of heaven on earth where Jesus Christ gives his life as the true Vine for all them who are grafted into him through faith.

There was nothing which prompted him to do this except his sincere compassion for people's misery and his undeserved grace in the beloved Son who bore all the world's sin as the innocent Lamb of God and thus reconciled it with God. Thus neither was there anything other than his undeserved grace in Christ which prompted him, as it says in our text, to go out, namely from the light in which he dwells from eternity and to which no one can approach, and to reveal this grace of his in Christ and to call people from the power of sin and Satan, in which we all lie captive, into his kingdom of grace to do his will.

How great and incomprehensible, my friends, is not the grace which is shown us by this! Think of them whom he calls "standing idle in the marketplace"! Yes, unfortunately, that's the way it is with all of us by nature. We are standing idle in the marketplace. The word of God which he has commanded us in his holy law to obey perfectly under the threat of the loss of salvation, that, we do not do. We do not want to do it. We cannot do it, just as it is written, "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Ro. 8:7.) The soul is, as our Catechism says: "inclined only to evil and unable and unwilling to do that which is good." In this condition we can therefore work with the greatest diligence, ability and perseverance, we can strive and work like a slave, yes, work ourselves to death under the law; we are, however, according to the righteous judgment of God, standing "idle in the marketplace," and with all our work and effort, all our toiling like slaves under the law, we are its trans-gressors in God's eyes and as such under its judgment, deserving of the wrath of God and of eternal con-demnation. O, that everyone of you might hear that and take it to heart, both you who also according to the judgment of the world are standing idle in the marketplace while you are squandering the strength of your youth and manhood in drink and lust, and you who are faring sumptuously every day and looking for ways to kill time in the most pleasant way, just like the rich man in the Gospel, because you are rich enough and don't need to work! But, dear friend, you hear it too, you who are squandering the work of your calling as a busy farmer or hard-working craftsman or prudent businessman. In the eyes of God you are also standing idle in the marketplace as long as you have not become a laborer in his vineyard, come into his kingdom of grace and been translated from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, as long as you have not received life in him and the love of God is not poured out into your heart!

But, my dear friends, what bottomless grace is it not, that our Lord and God, in whose eyes we have stood idle outside his kingdom and in whose eyes all our work has been sin, calls us to his kingdom of grace, to doing his work as his co-laborers for the building up of his kingdom! Yes, he not only calls us to work but he even promises the faithful laborer a reward. True, someone could think that the promise of reward has to exclude grace. But here we shall note that God's call is a powerful call and not a mere pow-erless human offer which it is up to us to accept or not accept by our own power, as we please. Through the power of his Word through which he calls us, he works, so that we receive a new desire and strength so that we both want to and can accept the call, both want to and can work in his vineyard and bear fruit to his good pleasure, just as Paul says, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Ph. 2:12.13.) Thus the promised reward is not one of merit but of grace, a reward of grace.

Or, tell me, you who are working in the Lord's vineyard: The one who called you, did he not give you the talent for you to make the most of, and the love of Christ besides, the thing which Paul says constrains us to use our talent faithfully and to do the work in his vineyard? Look at Paul himself! He could say that he had worked more than all the other apostles. And yet, what does he confess about himself? "By the grace of God I am what I am." 1 Co. 15:1O. In the kingdom of grace it is of course true that it is in our weakness that the strength of God is made perfect. Among the children of the world the laborer thinks first and last about the pay; in the Lord's vineyard the work itself is considered both as an honor and a blessing. To be able to work with the Lord all day long as his servant and co-worker is a demonstration of grace and blessedness for him who earlier knew of nothing other than serving the prince of this world and working for the meat which perishes. The fact that through his call God invites us to be his laborers, is grace and the fact that he makes us capable of doing the work, that is also grace.

To this work in the vineyard the Lord calls not merely some individuals whom he prefers but everyone whom he finds idle. Yes, what pains do we not see in the Gospel, that the heavenly householder takes pains not to pass anyone by but to get everyone who is standing idle into his vineyard! He is not satisfied with just going out at dawn, at the first hour and a little later at the third hour in order to hire laborers. No, even though the day is getting shorter and he can only expect less and less work from them, yet he still goes out again at the sixth and ninth hours. Yes, he even calls laborers into his vineyard at the eleventh hour when the day is waning. He passes no one by nor does he merely pretend to call anyone but shows the same earnestness for getting them into his vineyard over toward everyone, yes, also toward them who had neglected and misused almost their entire lives and stood idle in the marketplace until the evening of life. Also to such a person he grants the same grace and calls him to work in his vineyard so that we must exclaim with Peter, "Of a truth I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons." (Ac. 1O:34.)

What great comfort, my friend, does not lie in just this universality of grace! It assures you of the fact that just as the Master comes to everyone with his call, thus he came also to you, the individual, and called you so earnestly that with the first spark of life which was kindled in your soul and with which you were translated from darkness to light, you felt that God was speaking to you, that the Master was hiring you to be a laborer in his vineyard!

What comfort for him upon whom it dawns for the first time in the evening of his life that he has stood idle in the marketplace throughout his entire life and who now yearns so sincerely after being able to work in the kingdom of grace the brief time he has left, but who fears that now it is too late for him. What com-fort it is for him that the Lord also calls laborers into his vineyard at the eleventh hour and calls them to the same work and to enjoy the same grace! Yes, what comfort is there not in the Lord's answer to the thief for him who perhaps like the thief on the cross turns to the Savior for the first time in his last hour, "Today you shall be with me in paradise," (Lk. 23:43) so that what the Lord says through the apostle Paul is also true about the eleventh hour, "I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the hour of salvation have I succored you: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!" (2 Co. 6:2.) Woe to him, however, who in sinful security would not heed the Father's "acceptable time" when he let his call go out to him at the third or sixth hour! There is nothing in our parable about the fact that they who were hired in the eleventh hour had scorned the call earlier, which now has gone out to them. No, today if you hear his voice, Scripture says, "harden not your hearts!" (He. 4:7) just as we of course also sing:

This is the day of grace,

This is the day to find God.

O, that we, brothers and sisters, might rightly appreciate the great grace he has shown to us through calling us into his kingdom of grace so early through Baptism! Even if you have now been unfaithful to him, he is still faithful and the covenant he has concluded with you stands immovably firm so far as he is concerned, so that through it his inviting voice also has been able to call to you, accusing, exhorting and drawing you even when you fled from him. Yes, he assures you that he is also using the events of your life, the little ones and the big ones, in order to draw you to him through them and to hire you to be a laborer in his vineyard.

My friends, if we think of what undoubtedly compares most closely with the different hours in the para-ble to the different times in the course of the world all the way from the promise spoken to our first par-ents and until the Gospel is proclaimed for the last time before the trumpet of judgment sounds, then we also have an excellent testimony of the greatness of divine grace in the heavenly Father's concern that the blessed Gospel is to be proclaimed for the salvation of sinners at all times and to all peoples.

It says further on in the parable that the householder agreed with the laborers he hired in the morning, for a penny; to those who followed, he said, "Whatsoever is right, that shall you receive." That he consid-ers it right also to give them a penny is evident from his order to the steward: "Give them their hire," and from the fact that when they settled up, "they received every man a penny."

As much as to say, God has of his great mercy given his only-begotten Son as ransom for us, as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. In him we have become partakers of every blessing, temporal, spiritual and eternal. Because he who has given us his Son, should he not give us all things through him? All this he promises the laborers in his vineyard, in the Gospel. In the parable and elsewhere he himself calls it "a reward" which he has agreed with them about and which they shall receive "as is right." God's grace, my dear friends, is so great that in Christ he has established a covenant of grace with people, the New Testa-ment covenant in his blood. In the Gospel he comes to us in order to take us into covenant with himself since he proclaims to us that he has accepted the atoning sacrifice of Christ as complete payment for us, and for the sake of Christ he will take us into his grace and give us the right of inheritance with himself. If we accept this blessed message, if we comfort ourselves with this atoning sacrifice and through it the covenant of grace established in that way, and if we thus are reconciled with God and receive the rights of children, then we also obtain with it the right to plead Christ's merit as ours. Whatever even the devil can reprove such a laborer in the Lord's vineyard for, with however much right he can even point to the brief time we have labored, to many kinds of weaknesses and negligence in the work, however much he now can even for that reason threaten and frighten him with the judgment of the law, the laborer can, however, God be praised, boast of his right over toward all these temptations of the devil! He can appeal to the fact that the heavenly Father, who of his grace has engaged him as his laborer and given him the will and strength for the work, has also agreed with him about the reward of grace. He can fearlessly boast of it as something which rightly is due him according to God's covenant of grace in the power of Christ's merit. And, praise God, the devil with all his power cannot dispute the believer this right!

Thus we see to the praise of God's grace that even if there is a great difference as to the time of every individual's call it makes no difference with regard to the nature of the call. They are called in the eleventh hour with the same earnestness to the same vineyard, to the same work in it, and they are prom-ised the same reward of grace. In confidence in this promise of grace they also go to the work in the vine-yard.

The same thing is also true with regard to the work in the vineyard. The length of time they work can vary for the different workers all the way from having "borne the burden and heat of the day" up to only an hour's work. The kind of work can also be very different. One person is a very learned professor or very gifted pastor, another a farmer or a day-laborer, another again a poor seamstress who sits with her sewing from morning until night for years, or it's a helpless widow who lies paralyzed on her sickbed surrounded by a number of children. In one sense there is no difference in their work. It's all the same, big or little, distinguished or ordinary. It is work in the vineyard as surely as it really is work, work in faith in Jesus to the glory of God according to the Ten Commandments, as surely as you do not in spite of all your striving, apparently in the vineyard, still, however, stand idle in the marketplace.

The one penny, the same reward of grace which is promised every laborer, the one as well as the other, and which he already possesses beforehand in hope, also makes them all equal in spite of differing gifts, differing circumstances and positions in life. Thus there is no difference, man or woman, bond or free, lay or learned. It makes the poor Lazarus at the rich man's door rich and successful while the rich man is poor and miserable without it in spite of the fact that he fares sumptuously every day. It makes the least signif-icant laborer in the vineyard respectable. Thus he gets a new outlook on life, a new way of looking at life, namely that of which the apostle Paul speaks, that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and what is poor and despised in the eyes of men is exalted and glorious in God's eyes. And what grace is that not, my friends! Who has reason now to complain of meager abilities and gifts, about heavy and tight circumstances in life, about a low position in life, and unfortunate events in life? By the grace of God everyone can be a laborer in the vineyard, who is in an honorable, even if it is also the lowest position in life. May everyone only heed the call when it comes to him so that he does not plug his ears and despise it. May everyone therefore hear the Word of God diligently and keep it because through it the Father is calling him to the work in the vineyard, and this call of the Father is powerful.

But if you have now become a laborer in his vineyard through the Father having hired you, then while you are working it is important always to have the proper view, the proper understanding of the penny.

Because in the parable we see that that is the thing which shows the value of the work when they settled up, whether it really has been a work in the vineyard or not, and in that way also whether the promised reward is due you as a laborer in the vineyard. However, also where that is the case, there the work in the vineyard does not thereby cease being by grace alone and the reward to be a reward of grace and not a merit on the basis of work or of the greater or lesser diligence and faithfulness with which it was carried out. Because the faith and confidence with which the laborer in the vineyard accepts and keeps the prom-ise about a reward of grace, the glad hope with which he looks forward to the promise during much weak-ness and suffering, as well as the humility, willingness and faithfulness with which he therefore also seeks to do his work in the vineyard, is of course all an effect of God's call of grace - all by the grace of the one who called. The faithful laborer in the vineyard will therefore not himself assume the least of the glory for it either, but will give the Lord all the glory.

We come now to the last section of the parable, the settling of accounts which the master orders his steward to make with the laborers toward evening.

Our dear God is keeping such an accounting with the individual already here in the time of grace in order to exhort him to earnest self-examination and repentance so that no one who is usually considered to be among "the first" shall be placed among "the last" at the final decisive judgment. The master wants with this to bring one and another person who in spite of his work is standing "idle in the marketplace," to realize this in time, and still follow the master's call which perhaps is now going out to him in the eleventh hour, so that he can be one of "the last" who are reckoned as "the first" at the judgment.

On the Last Day, when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, the Son of man will make the decisive judgment which takes place for every person among us already at our death.

"Call the laborers," the lord of the vineyard says to his steward in the parable, "and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first." We see that the steward does that. The reward of grace which we heard the householder had agreed on with the first laborers, he paid. He therefore finds it right also to give it to the last without any reduction. The Lord who has acquired this reward of grace has of course earned it for us all, and suffered the same painful, cursed death on the cross for them who came into the vineyard last, as well as for the first.

That the Lord orders his steward to begin with the last is not to surprise us. His name is of course "Won-derful," (Is. 9:6) and his entire household of grace is a miracle by which the world is offended to this very day. It is however very comforting to hear that just the last, they who consider themselves as the last, these tired souls and troubled consciences, shall least of all be forgotten when the reward of grace is distributed on the Day of Reckoning. These last, we see, each also got their penny.

They had regarded it as grace in the extreme that they were called in the eleventh hour and received permission to work along in the vineyard. But with what joy and thanks, my friends, did they not accept the reward of grace! They saw now their hope gloriously fulfilled, all doubt and hopelessness in the fearful hours of anxiety and struggle put to shame.

"But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny." Already by this, these first laborers show that they have by no means considered it as pure and simple grace that they who however stood idle, were called so early and received permission to work in the vineyard throughout the entire day. Therefore neither do they consider the promised penny as a reward of grace. Much rather, they look upon it as something they deserve because they had worked so hard the entire day and they think that this ought to be taken into consideration at the accounting and that it gives them the right to expect that they are going to get more than the others. When they see themselves disappointed in this, we hear their dissatisfaction break out in murmuring against the householder, and envy over toward the other laborers, and they said, "These last have worked but one hour, and you have made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day." But what answer did they receive? "Friend!" he said to one of them, "I do you no wrong: did you not agree with me for a penny? Take your money, and go your way: I will give unto this last, even as unto you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is your eye evil, because I am good?"

My friends, we must not understand this in this way, that on the Last Day anyone is going to presume to call the Judge of the world to account, or that then he is going to see it necessary to engage in such a just-ifying of his judgment. No. Everybody is going to bow their knees then and the Lord is going to stand justified in all his judgments.

On the contrary, here the Lord wants to reprove us, as if in a mirror, and caution and instruct however many there are who are regarded as "the first" in the church and are tempted to regard their work for the kingdom of God as something meritorious and to see their own glory in it, yes, as the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, even to look askance at the fact that such great sinners are accepted into grace and were considered worthy of the same salvation which they themselves expect. The Lord wants to teach us that if we do not earnestly resist and overcome such a temptation, but allow that idea to get the best of us, and then to work with that idea in mind, we will then become "the last," after having once been "the first."

The Lord shows in his answer how shameful and damnable such an idea is and how completely incom-patible it is with being a child of God and a true laborer in the Lord's vineyard. First, he reproves exactly those laborers that he is doing them no wrong. What he agreed with them on of his grace, he has faithfully kept; he is faithful. The fact that they shut their eyes to the value of this reward of grace, the fact that they therefore cannot enjoy it and rejoice in it either, is not his fault but their own. They have already received their reward. They must let themselves be satisfied with it and be on their way.

Next the Lord justifies what he has done for the last laborers by saying that it is lawful for him to do what he wants with his own. If he is good, and of his grace wants to give them the same eternal salvation which he had also promised the first, but which they despised, then they only show their evil disposition when for that reason they want to challenge him and begrudge the other laborers. After that, he concludes with the words, "So the last shall be first, and the first last, for many be called, but few chosen." And with that, each receives his sentence.

The first were of course also called, yes, even in the first hour, to work in the Lord's vineyard. They have no reason to complain that they have been wronged in any way or that they are shown less grace than the others. But like so many who do not outwardly follow the call but are standing outside the church, they have despised the grace of God. They have certainly joined the visible church on earth and according to human judgment taken part in the work of the kingdom of God perhaps even as the first, but during all of that they had no knowledge or understanding of grace, of the fact that it is by grace that they are called into the Lord's vineyard, by grace that they are allowed to participate in the work here, and by grace that the reward is promised them.

Not for the Lord's sake, but for gain, or because they believe they are doing God a service by doing it, do they profess themselves members of the church of God. Their work in the vineyard, their prayers and sac-rifices, their denial and forsaking of self, their entire life in their own so very pious opinion, they consider to be meritorious and they think that the Lord cannot possibly do anything else than take notice of that in this life as well as at the final distribution of the rewards.

Or they have followed the call sincerely from the beginning and have been good laborers in the vine-yard, members of the kingdom of God, but then they have been negligent in the use of the Word of God and the Sacrament, have neglected to watch and to pray, have been lukewarm, indifferent and secure, have fallen from grace little by little, to rely on their works and have at last become like those hypocrites and dead members of the church. Because they therefore slight the grace of God through which alone they can be preserved as faithful laborers in his vineyard as true, living members of the church of God, they are not acknowledged by the householder now as legitimate laborers in his vineyard, as belonging to his king-dom of grace, but are rejected. They become the last, who actually were among the many who are called, but not of the few who are chosen and who enjoy the blessed fellowship of God eternally. That this howev-er was completely their own fault and not the gracious God's, the Lord thus teaches us in the parable. Yes, "contempt of grace shall be avenged terribly," and, "Let him that thinks he is standing take heed lest he fall." (1 Co. 1O:12.)

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let each of us examine ourselves now and look at how he is working in the Lord's vineyard!

You, lay or learned, who are working tirelessly in the church of God in the position in which God has placed you, not without trouble and sacrifice, perhaps not without visible blessing either, you who do not fall into denying either that it is by the grace of God that you are both working there and are expecting the reward, oh, watch, however, very earnestly over your own deceitful heart and beware of the proud, self-righteous thoughts which so much want to creep into the humble Christian's heart too! See that your hard work may truly be a work, both in, with and for the Lord, a witness of the fact that you yourself are a liv-ing member of Christ, that you have the true faith in him and the proper view of confidence in his merit and the grace founded on it, which makes you to be the Lord's faithful laborer and one who shares in the grace promised to you! On the other hand, guard against looking at that work of yours or the attitude shown in it as something you are taking along in the settling up, even if ever so little, in order to support your hope of the eternal reward of grace, or as something which you think God must take into considera-tion as something meritorious, why he must give you this reward of grace over so many who either are hardly laborers in the vineyard or whose work appears to you as not worth mentioning in comparison with your own! Yes, be on guard for that; because "the first shall be the last."

It is with an entirely different frame of mind that the last people whom the Lord talks about in the parable enter and work in his vineyard. They look upon it as an incomprehensible grace to receive per-mission to come into the vineyard and to work there, even if only for an hour. They have acknowledged with both dismay and sadness what it is "to stand idle" and what a wretched end that will bring with it. To get to work, even if ever so little, in the Lord's fellowship as his servants and to his glory, is for them a grace for which they can never fully thank him with ever so intense, sacrificing work in the vineyard. Therefore they acknowledge also the blessedness which he has promised them and which they rejoice in in hope already down here as an undeserved demonstration of grace which is given them not for the sake of their diligence and work but for the sake of Jesus Christ alone. There is nothing they are so afraid of as that by giving pride, self-righteousness, the love of the world and other sins room in their heart, they are going to despise and forfeit the grace of God and thereby fail of the blessed hope of life. These people who thus show that they have the marks of the elect, namely that called by grace, they work tirelessly in the Lord's vineyard through the grace of which they are partakers, and in humble but sure expectation of the eternal salvation which is promised them by grace - these last are now the first.

And may this, my dear friends, be the goal to which we all shall strive earnestly in humility, in firm confidence in the merciful God who has promised us the necessary grace for that in Christ Jesus! Hear us and grant our prayer, O God, for the sake of Jesus Christ! Amen.

Proedikener over Evangelierne, pages 148-162