by E. A. Wilson PLEASE NOTE: The following has been selected to provide you, dear reader, with another interesting and challenging subject for your consideration. You will find that much contained herein, varies with traditional teachings and beliefs. However, it is my 'burden' to encourage as many as will, to honestly consider with an open heart and mind...then, trusting the Holy Spirit to teach each one as HE WILLS. =) Please don't hesitate to e-mail us omifren@bright.net with your comments and or questions. We'll do our best when responding. MATTHEW 20:1-16 “For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. 2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. 4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? 7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. 8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. 9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. 10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. 11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the good man of the house, 12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal with us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. 13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? 14 Take that thine is, and go they way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many shall be called, but few chosen.” When we begin to speak about the seventh seal of the Revelation, I know that many people get nervous and I get nervous, too, when I begin to preach it, for there is a lot of preaching going on that is called the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet age, but there is a truth in God’s Word, that God has had “stored up”. Since some of the Word of God was written for people just in this day and age, we do desire to know that which God wishes revealed. We are thankful for the truth of the past. Surely it has been declared in a faithful way and we thank God for it. JOHN CAUGHT A VISION… In the fifth chapter of the Revelation we find that John caught a vision of God’s throne and a book sealed with seven seals. Now we realize also that in studying the Revelation, that the seven letters found there, cover seven periods of time through the Gospel day, from the day of Pentecost or a short time before that, clear through to the end of time. Now the book could not be “opened” (understanding presented clearly) until all the seals were opened. Can you see that part? If the book is bound with seven seals, how can you preach that you have the book completely open when a seal has never been broken? We are not discounting the greatness from the sixth seal light one bit, but are rejoicing in it. ANOTHER SEAL TO BE OPENED… Someone said, they said their light was complete. It was. Every bit of light they had was light. There was no darkness in it. It was pure, it was clean, it was light in its greatness and all of its radiance, but, there was another seal to be opened. Go right on over to the 11th chapter and other portions of the Revelation where you see the seventh angel sounded, and he looked in the temple, and the temple was opened and the book was opened and he could see the ark of the Covenant, and when the seventh angel came along with a glorious light and began to unfold, pure as a white horse, and the white army following and showing how at supper time, God prepared a table for all the fowls of the air to come and eat. They are eating the sayings of men, the flesh of men and captains and mighty men and eating the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and while that was going on, he saw that picture unfold and John fell to his knees and went to worship him. There’s a light in grace that even put John on his knees. He was ready to worship the preacher that was preaching. Read the 22nd chapter of the Revelation. JUST AN OLD CHURCH OF GOD PREACHER… Someone said: that was an angel from heaven. Was it? Read it. That brother said unto him, Get up John. I’m not an angel from heaven; I’m one of thy brethren and fellow servants, one of the prophets. He was just an old church of God preacher. Somebody said: How do you know? Well, I’m one of the prophets that preached to them that keep the sayings of the book: Well, that’s the Church of God. “Up on your feet, John; don’t worship me. I’m one of your brethren. I’m just one of your fellow servants.” But the light was so great, it brought him close to God and to heaven. I believe God’s people still have God’s attitude! TIME SLIPPING AWAY…BIG JOB TO BE DONE… In the 20th chapter of Matthew, where the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that is the householder which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. (read Matt. 20:1-6) Here we have the picture of God’s Time clock. As you know, we have watches for the purpose of knowing what time it is and how late it is in the day and how long before it is quitting time, and how much work there is to be done. Now I don’t believe in clock-watchers, but I believe we ought to realize something---that the time is slipping away and there is a big job to be done. God has a clock and His alarm always goes off on time. He sets her hundreds of years before. When the time was right he sounded the alarm, and the alarm went off just right. Now, here we have before you the face of a clock (check drawing) – God’s clock, and we know this clock covers the Gospel Day. Somebody said, How do you know it? Because He likened this parable. He said, “as a kingdom is like this”, and the kingdom covers the Gospel Day. We know God would have us look at it as a clock. Why? Because He meant the hour, not the 3rd hour, the 6th hour, nor the 9th hour, nor the 11th hour; He was not speaking of a literal day of 24 hours, but the period of time covering the Gospel day. So we know we are safe when we study the face of a clock. Let’s go around the clock and see exactly where we are! THE JEW’S DAY WAS JUST TWELVE HOURS… Now we have to learn a few things to read the face of this clock. First of all, I believe that you all realize that in the Jew’s day there was just twelve hours. John the 11th chapter, Jesus’ own words were, “is there not 12 hours in a day?’ The next thing we want to remember, the Word of God teaches us that a Jew’s day began at 6 o’clock in the morning, and ended at six in the evening. So we have a pretty good idea where to start in setting our clock or getting our clock straightened out so that we can understand this Gospel Day and understand where we are now when we look at this teaching or parable. We read that he went our early in the morning to hire laborers in his vineyard. Now Malachi said that the sun of righteousness would arise with healing in his wings, and in this morning when it was yet darkness, John went out in the break of the morning in his early ministry, and Christ in His ministry made His first call. The first call was to the Jews and the Jews alone. In the first call he went out early in the morning with John the Baptist. “THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS WERE UNTIL JOHN” The Word of God says that the law and the prophets were until John, since then, the kingdom is preached and every man presseth into it. We know where we started and that it was to the Jews, so we’re still in the right place. How do you know? You read that real slow, and it said on the first call when He went out early in the morning He agreed with then, or a better translation, He coveted with them for a penny. That’s the only group---that’s the only call, where He coveted with anybody. All the rest of them, He just said, I’ll pay you what is right. I’ll deal with you in grace. The first call only, He dealt with them, coveted with them, agreed with them. He came to His own and His own received Him not. I want you to see that here is the first call. Then it says that He went out the third hour. Alright now, if we know that He went out here at six, the third hour would be three hours later, and that puts us up here to nine o’clock, when He made the second call, which was on the day of Pentecost, and there is where the Gentile came in. How do we know He didn’t cove with this people? He said to these people when He went out into the market place, “Go work in my vineyard, and whatever is right, I’ll pay.” He dealt with them in grace. If we read that a little slower, we’ll find that God knows what is right. I could say that again---that what Christ gives us is just right, because He knows just what we need. Now I want to press that a little farther. He doesn’t give you what you earn. No, whatever is right. Like the man that went to work for somebody one time and the man said, “Yes, I have plenty of work. I’ll be glad to have you work.” He started to go to work, and turned around and came back and said, “Wait a minute now, what do you pay?” He said, “I’ll give you whatever you’re worth.” Yes, he said, “but I can’t live on that!” Well, if we got just what we’re worth, we couldn’t live on that today. We’re living by the grace of God. He’s over paying every one of us, however, some of us may not believe it. We’re over-paid. It doesn’t matter if we worked day and night. If we’d ponder it a little, we’d realize that we’re not getting what we’re worth, we’re getting what is right. He deals with us in grace. And let’s all say, “Thank God!” So we see there as we look at Pentecost, and I’d like to stay there because a lot of things happened there, but I believe you are familiar with them. Now, we ought to see that He likened the kingdom to His vineyard. If you know the 18th Psalm, and so may other scriptures that we would like to turn to, if we had the time, where He shows us His vineyard. What is this vineyard? His vineyard is a place where His people bring forth the fruits of righteousness and true holiness unto Him. That’s in as few words as I know how to tell you---what the vineyard is. WE HAVE TO KNOW WE’RE RIGHT… So we see that He went out the third hour of the day. Somebody says, “How do you know that’s Pentecost?” We have to know we’re right or we can’t go ahead. Acts, the 2nd chapter, 15th verse, tells us there, when the glory of God struck the soul and made them jump and pray and shout, they said they were drunk, but Peter said they are not drunk as you suppose, seeing that it is but the third hour of the day. Now we’re ready to go again. He said this; whatever is right I’ll give you, and He went out the sixth hour, and the ninth hour. Now three more hours from the third hour, puts us right here where the sun would do down at noon. Amen! We’re right so far, brethren. Amos said the sun would go down at noon and there would be darkness right at noon. I want to dwell here just a little. There’s a lot of people that would like for you to feel that the church died here. And they preach: “our church began in 1880.” No, God called a people clear through. That’s one of the burdens of my message---to show you that the vineyard was working right around the clock. The church was very much alive right in here. I have to tell you the truth. God called a people right here in the darkness. The best workers God found, He found right here. They had a harder time weeding out the vineyard here than you have today. The best workers God ever called in His vineyard, He found at the noon hour. You don’t believe me? Well, get your history books and a pencil and paper and go figure it up. I know this began right down here in A. D. 270, but there was a thousand years of darkness. That’ what I’m dealing with right here. SIXTY MILLION SOULS WENT UP Right here, sixty million souls went up. And history would have us feel and know that there was more souls saved and went home to glory right through this call, than in any other age. They preached the Gospel and had something within them that convinced people to the place that they’d be willing to be burned at the stake. And we have a time getting something within people that they’re willing for people to speak evil of them. The Church was very much alive. God called a people right in the darkness. I want to repeat, that they were real workers in the kingdom. I feel that I owe it to these brethren. We might forget about them, so I’m going to remind us a little. Right in the midst, about 1100 A.D. or a little later, Peter Waldo and others were men of God. You say that was the Waldences. Yes, that’s what the devil called them. They were the Church of God. The devil put that name on them, just like he put the name Christian on the people down at Antioch. They were the Church of God and working in His vineyard. That little group that had to hide in the caves and what not, were so true to God that God used them in a magnificent way. We know that a reformation came; we’ll show you that, but I want you to see something. That a people stayed true and laid a foundation or we would never have had it. It’s just not like God to let anything happen that He doesn’t prophesy about it first. A lot of people think that a reformation just came out. No, it could not have been of God had there been no prophecy of it. Everything that God had planned He told Abraham---and He told Abraham and his descendants about the land of Canaan a long time before they ever got there. He said that Cyrus would turn His people loose out of Babylon a hundred years before Cyrus was ever born. GOD DOES NOT WANT US TO BE IN DARKNESS… God does not want us to be in darkness on these things---and Jesus, when He walked around down here, said, I tell you these things. What for? So we can see them come to pass. You’ll see it, and know that I told you the truth. Then you can trust me for every thing. If there were no prophecy here, we would have known it was not of God. Peter Waldo stood true to God. The Word of God teaches us---and also history, that Rome burned the Bible, killed the saints, and then the Bibles that were left were translated into Latin where the Word would be hid from the people. If God was to ever bring a reformation of light back onto mankind, the Bible was going to have to be gotten from Latin into English and God knew just how to do it. THEY GOT A REVELATION OF TRUTH… Here was Peter Waldo and these poor people that history would have us feel were a poor class of people, deprived of everything and unable to gather anything together of intellectual nature, but through the Spirit of God they got a revelation of truth, but God needed somebody to translate the Word before a reformation could ever come. So, we read that some of these people got a job with John Wycliff, who was the head of the Oxford University, a wise old boy, that was capable of translating the Bible. God worked it around one of these humble people to get a job for him and the glory of God so shone out through their lives that John Wycliff was convinced of truth and gave his heart to God and took that Latin Bible and translated it into English. I’m wanting to show you how they were working in the vineyard that day. Over in Bohemia was John Huss. God was stirring his soul to prepare for the next move. The Bible was back in English now, and it needed to be proclaimed, so God saw fit that an army officer of England got hold of Wycliff’s writing of the Word, and carried it over to the University of Prauge where John Huss was the elector of it. John Huss got hold of it, glory to God, and began to proclaim it. They brought him and put him in jail and many of these men and brethren came to him and asked him, let us find you defense. We can give you the best defense there is. We can get you out of here. He refused to talk to them on that. He said: I only want the glory and the cross of Christ. One night when he was depressed he painted a picture of Christ on the cell wall. Friend, I’m giving you history. When he went to sleep that night, he had a dream, the pope and the bishop came and took paint brushes and just defaced the face of Christ until it was pitiful. The next morning he woke up with that dream on his mind. He fell on his knees before God and said, “My God, will the face of Christ be defaced until men can never recognize it again?” He went to sleep that night and God gave him another vision. Thank God, he said, many painters came and they touched that picture up and brought it out so glorious, that all of the defective was removed and after the painters were through, a great multitude came and sang praises unto God. He repeated his vision the next day to a man that visited him and said, brother, here is the answer to it. Rome has defaced the face of Christ until man cannot see Him, but he said, after my departure God is going to send preachers that will paint such a picture of Him as they preach the Gospel, that men will never be able to hide Him again from the hearts of men: Glory be to God! And they burned him at the stake. And when they burned him at the stake he said, “You are about to roast the goose, but God’s going to raise up a swan within the next hundred years that you can’t fry, cook, or nothing else.” Thus he spoke of Martin Luther. Don’t tell me that God didn’t have people working in His vineyard. THE CALLS REAP FOR A PERIOD OF YEARS… Yes, He went out the sixth hour and made a call. Now, we’re not saying this was a ten minute call. The calls reap for a period of years. Down here we come to the 9th hour. Here was the 6th and three more hours, puts us here to the ninth hour when God made another call. About 1880---God opened up the 6th seal and gave the ministry a call, to call people to come and work in His vineyard. You go back and study His vineyard and it’s that which God has said it is; so He dug it; He fixed it; He watered it; He cultivated it. Men began to lose God’s call when they ceased working in God’s vineyard, so they began to work to build something else. Now, by the clock, we come right around and here somebody said that’s the last call. Well, where’s the 11th hour going to come in? You answer it for me. You say there’s none later than the 1880 call. You answer it for me. We’re just dealing with the scripture that God has opened up. We just got to own the fact that many scriptures were just hid from us, but when God opened the seventh seal there’s a place to work them. There’s a way opened to gain understanding. Why was it necessary for an 11th hour call? We find in God’s Eternal Word that something happened to the morning church. What appeared then, is the same reason why the necessity of the 11th hour call. Something happened in the morning church, that God called it a falling away. The original, perfect glory that the morning church had was short lived. If we could just get this fact across to the people, it would cause us to quit trying to hold on to something that there’s no glory in. [ Continued...link below ]