You can not save yourself!

 We can not save ourselves!

Matthew 21:28-30 "But what think ye? 

A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard.
 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.
While he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not."

MATTHEW 21:23-24; Jesus' Authority Challenged

22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask in prayer.”
23When Jesus returned to the temple courts and began to teach, the chief priests and elders of the people came to Him. “By what authority are You doing these things? they asked. “And who gave You this authority?”
 24“I will also ask you one question,” Jesus replied, “and if you answer Me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.…

MARK 11:27-33; The Authority of Jesus Challenged

27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 
29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 
30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” 
31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

MARK 12:1-12; The Parable of the Wicked Tenants 

1.  Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the wine press and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 

² At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.  

³ But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 

⁴ Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully.  

⁵ He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

⁶ “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
⁷ “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 
* ⁸ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
⁹ “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? 
He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.  
¹⁰ Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:

“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
¹¹ the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’^[a]?”

¹² Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.

Footnotes:

1. Mark 12:11 Psalm 118:22,23

LUKE 20:1-9 Who is invested with God's authority

This parable was given in response to the religious leaders rejecting Jesus' authority. Through this parable, Jesus reveals God's rejection of the Jews in response to their rejection of His Son. Jesus is showing that those who do the will of God are actually the ones invested with God's authority.

These leaders had a form of godliness like this second son, but they were not doing the will of God. The publicans and harlots had no form of godliness, but when confronted with the preaching of John, many of them repented and began to do the will of God like the first son in the story.

These religious Jews, who sat in the seat of Moses, disqualified themselves from being God's representatives here on earth, because of their hypocrisy and hard hearts. Even the publicans and harlots, who repented at John's preaching, were ahead of them. There is no sin more frequent among religious people than that of self-righteousness; that is to honor the Lord with the mouth when the heart is far from Him.

These sinners were entering the kingdom of God ahead of the very religious Jews because they knew they were sinners and they put their faith in a Savior. One of the deadliest things about religious self-righteousness is the deception that we will be saved because of our good deeds.

We cannot save ourselves regardless of how good we act.

Who wants to be the best sinner that ever was sent to Hell?