01.05. Which Son Are You?

Which Son Are You?

Matthew 21:28-32

    When my wife and I were childless many couples who had two children often told us how totally different their children were. It is hard to imagine this being true when the children have the same mother, father and home situation to grow in. We found it to be true as well.

We as God’s children are not the same either. God didn’t make us His "cookie cutter kids." In the parable set before us we will see this. This parable is known as the Parable of the two sons. It is only found in the Gospel of Matthew.

I- Characters:

    There are three characters in this parable. "A certain man," the father and his two sons. The father can be no other than God the Father. The first son pictures for us the world that lays no claim to being religious. The publicans and the harlots according to Matthew 21:31 The second of the two sons give us a picture of the Pharisees, scribes, and priest of the day.

II- Setting:

    The time period of His ministry that Jesus spoke this parable is during His last week before the crucifixion. This is known as the Passion Week. He is in the temple (Matthew 21:23) where He is teaching and the Pharisees want to know by what authority He did the things He did. He ask them a question, as He did so many times, that turned the table. He asked them by what authority John the Baptist baptized. They could not tell Him without condemning themselves. Therefore, He refused to tell them by what authority He did what He did. Instead He tells them a parable; a parable that holds a mirror up so they could see themselves. Matthew 21:45 gives us evidence of this where it says, "when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them."

III- The Parable:

The parable Jesus told was of a man who had two sons. The first when he was told to go work in the family vineyard openly refused to go. The second son, in a deceptive way, when he was asked to go immediately said, "Yes, Sir I will go," but it was only words and he did not go at all. Jesus then asked them which son did the will of the father. The answer was obvious. He them tells them that the outcast of the society would make heaven before they would because they repented and believed. (Matthew 21:31-32 ) IV- The Questions:

There is another application to this parable that I found by Dr. Herbert Lockyer the author of All the Parables of the Bible. Allow me to quote him to set the stage for this thought. "Some expositors say that God, as the Father, is the principle figure in the parable, and that his sons may be divided into the obedient and the disobedient. Perhaps, in a creative sense, God is the Father of all, just as Job speaks of Him as the Father of the "rain." Son, however, is a term implying a birth-relationship—a relationship which regeneration alone can bring about. Unless we have received the spirit of adoption we have no right to call God, Father (Galatians 4:5 )

Further, God does not ask service from those who are not His. Saved, we serve, and the "wineyard" is the sphere in which we serve Him." (Herbert Lockyer, All the Parables of the Bible, p 223.)

The application that Lockyer makes is that the parable could be interpreted as a secondary interpretation as two of God’s children relating to the God the Father. This application can be applied to any given church congregation on any given Sunday morning. There are some who are in open refusal in their heart about servicing God and letting Christ be Lord of their life while others are talking the talk but are not putting it into practice. They have a form of religion but deny the power of it. Which Son are we most like, the first or the second? Do we say, "I’ll go and never get around to it? Or do we decide that we need to go after we have refused and go. Which did the will of the Father? Which of us are doing the fathers will? Those who will cry out God I have failed you but I repent and want to do better. Or those who will sit and pretend to be walking close to God when they are lying to themselves. Which was most guilty of disobedience? The first son was initially but he repented. The second son was not initially but was in the long run in worse rebellion that the first. Which was most honest? The first son was honest in the fact that he openly refused to go. The second was dishonest and deceptive in the fact that he leads the father to believe he would go but did not.

V- The Application: