First of all, it's a Parable of the Kingdom; and it's a parable of labourers being put into service in the kingdom, to be productive. Notice the vineyard, which always speaks of people in the kingdom of God; so it's talking about being productive for the Lord in His kingdom.
That one guy, who got in at the beginning of the day, got one denarius for the whole day. Then through the day he employed others; until finally get the last one. It was a 12 hour day, the last one in the eleventh hour just got in, only did one hours' work, but he got rewarded exactly the same. Of course it got them a bit upset, because that's ‘not fair’. God is fair, God is just – “shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”, so the issue here is one of opportunity. What kind of opportunity did you have?
They were all employed to serve. Some had more opportunity than others; and some had less opportunity. God took into account, in dealing with them, how much opportunity they had. So you may serve the Lord all your life - saved at 16, served faithfully all your life; and then someone else, at the age of 40 gets saved, and they look back and think: well I didn't get a chance. They've come in later on in life. They still get the chance, and they still can be completely productive with the opportunity they have.
Some may come in, and they're in the last decade of their life - they can still be completely productive, and completely fruitful, in the last season of their life. God takes into account these four things.
1) Quality, the nature of what you've done; what motivation what was in it; and whether you heard from God, and did what He wanted you to do.
2) Potential - did we fulfil the potential in our life? Did we actually labour, and come to the best that we could accomplish with our life?
3) Productivity - did we actually produce anything? If a person has produced more, they're rewarded more.
4) Opportunity - how much opportunity do we have?
All of those, of course, you could study in detail. I encourage you to do it, encourage you to look at it, read it; and begin to think then, and reflect back to your own life: what am I doing with my life while I'm on the earth?
Many Christians are not established in this truth. Because they're not established in their truth, they just do whatever they want to do - live their life the way they want to live. Their life is very similar to the world; their values are very similar to the world. However, what they're doing is, losing an opportunity to invest in eternity. They're losing an opportunity in life to actually, not only benefit now, but to gain for all eternity.
So we'll just finish with the last scripture. In Revelations 20, there is another judgement called: the Great White Throne Judgement. This is an eternal judgement too.
So after the Judgement Seat of Christ, comes the beginning of a thousand years. The Great White Throne Judgement, as far as I see it, comes at the end of the thousand years.
Revelations 20:11 - “I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God; and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things written in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were delivered in them. Death and hell gave up the dead that were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works.”
Now I want you to see these two statements; the Book of Life; and ‘books’. They're two different things. The Book of Life, is a book in heaven, a literal book, where is written the name of every person who has come to trust in Jesus Christ to be their saviour.
Their name is written in the Book of Life. They are born again; the Spirit of God has come into them. They are acknowledged; they belong in the Kingdom of God; they're children of the kingdom.