THE GOD OF ELEVENTH HOUR

Sermon 16.
The God of eleventh hour
“And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and said unto them, why stand ye here all the day idle?”─ Matt. 20:6 KJV.
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rethren, do you know that an “eleventh hour” is an idiomatic expression which means the last hour─ the last possible moment for doing something [before it’s too late].

From the “Parable of the Vineyard workers” told in Matt. 20:1-7, we see a set of people who were not employed to work in the vineyard of God. They were like applicants seeking for employments but no one was hiring them, and so they stood idle perhaps in a main road or street. When there was a massive recruitment, their applications were not honored, and in the subsequent one, no one considered them but it was by God’s mercy that they were found standing idle at the late hour, a time they might have considered themselves as unlucky fellows, a time their children would look unto them for food, a time they became hopeless. Christ saw them and then employed them at the eleventh hour. Such men favored by God were the first to receive a salary before the first three sets of people that were hired before them.  

Now listen, if no company or establishment honors your application, and you have stayed for years looking for job, the God of eleventh hour is locating you right now.

An eleventh hour is a critical moment in someone’s life, a time when someone desperately needs help from any angle for healing, a time when the financial strength of someone has nothing to write home about, at this eleventh hour comes our savior to deliver us, shutting up the months of people that are eavesdropping to hear or see you ebb away by the condition you have been into.

Illustration

There was a man who worked and expected his salary, but his boss refused to pay him. This is an act of wickedness. His boss wanted him to suffer in life─ to beg for food. At that moment the man had nothing to eat, came an envelope containing a reasonable amount of money from his son who was living in Calabar. I was there when the envelope arrived. The man waved his hand unto the glory of God as a token of his gratitude.

We see that at that critical time people expected the man to beg, God appeared at last through the man’s son to help him erase the impending shame. Now hear this, anytime people expect shame of disappointment in your life, God will come for your rescue. And may the God who helped to revive the son of that widow of Nain meet you at the time of your need. May the same God who showed his mercy on the Cross at that last moment a criminal repented grant you the mercy to secure job, admission, husband or wife and happiness.  Amen.