Section 108 B

Section 108 B
IN REPLY TO THE QUESTIONS AS TO HIS AUTHORITY
JESUS GIVES THE THIRD GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES.
(In the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.)
Subdivision B
PARABLE OF THE TWO SONS
MATT. 21:28-32

Audience--The Jewish leaders
"A bad promise well broken; a good promise sacrificed" BI, Talmage
Jesus asks the leaders to decipher a parable where one son says he will go and doesn't, while the other says he won't go and does.  "Who did the will of his father," he asks.  The answer points to the preceding context where the leaders questioned where his authority originated and also that works, their works, were not God's works.

"For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him."  -Matthew 21:32

"The parable of the two sons teaches that hard hearts may lie under fair words, while those of whom we expect least and whose first greeting is abrupt and disappointing, may later prove to be the most devoted and hopeful disciples."-FB Meyer

"His subsequent disobedience. We need not suppose that this second son had lied to his father, promising in smooth words what he never intended to perform. It is more probable that our Lord would have us think of him as honest in his profession. He really intended to obey. But he did not count the cost, or the good mood of acquiescence passed away, or some other more fascinating attraction led him to forget, or at least to neglect, his promise. There is an enormous step to be taken from good resolutions to good actions. Many a hindrance, many a temptation, comes between." Pulpit

"It is not enough that we apprehend truth to be good and valuable, if it do not influence the will and the affections." -E. Temple

"Therefore I say to every man in my presence: Do not neglect the impulses to a nobler life. Do not put them away from you. Do not prove dishonest and tricky with any of those movements in yourself which indicate that the germ of Divine life is in you. “-BI

=