Anyway, turn with me and your
Bibles to Matthew chapter 21, verse 33 is where we're going
to start reading today as soon as we pray. And we'll read to
the end of the chapter. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would be with us in your Word, that you would teach us
in our heart, that you would give us faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and allow us this blessing to see Him In His great accomplishment
for needy sinners to Your glory and our eternal salvation, Lord,
we pray that You would warn us and comfort us, cause us not
to run from Him who corrects us, but run to Him for mercy,
to look into the face of our judge and see our Savior there.
Lord, we pray this mercy for all here today. In Jesus' name
we pray. Amen. Matthew chapter 21, beginning
at verse 33. You'll follow there with me.
Actually, let me read also verse 32, because it carries with it
the previous parable that we went over two weeks ago. If you
recall, there were two sons in that parable. Jesus used those
two sons to represent two kinds of people. There were the elders,
the chief priests, and the scribes that Jesus is now talking to,
and there were the publicans and the harlots. And those publicans
and harlots, when they heard the preaching of John the Baptist,
and you know that John preached about Christ, remember what he
said? Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of
the world, When they heard John preach of Christ, they repented. That means they turned from their
previous beliefs to trust the Lord Jesus Christ. But these
scribes, these elders of the Jews, these chief priests, these
men who were given oversight in that nation with what they
had from the Word of God, they did not repent. In fact, they
rejected Him. So the parable was about their
rejection and the gospel of God's grace to sinners like us. Now
this next parable, which begins in verse 33, is another parable. It's both about the Jews and
about God's gospel. So let's begin at verse 32. For
John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed
him not, but publicans and harlots believed him. And you, when you
had seen it, repented not afterward that you might believe him, And
so He says, and hear another parable. So that was directed
at these men who were there with Him. So He gives another parable. He's going to give two more actually.
We're only going to cover this one this week. He said, there
was a certain householder Think of it as a landlord, someone
who owns vast amounts of land. He says, there was a certain
householder which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and
digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out
to husbandmen. The word let means to rent it
out, like sharecroppers. Take care of this field, and
then you would get part of it, and the owner would get the rest.
And he went into a far country, and when the time of the fruit
drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen that they might
receive the fruits of it. So the husbandmen were the ones
that were given the vineyard to take care of. The servants
were sent from the landowner to the husbandmen to get the
fruit at the season of the fruit. His payment from them for being
able to raise crops on his field. The fruit was actually for both
the Lord and for them, in some sense. They were paid their part,
but he's the one who the field and the fruit belonged to. Verse
35. And the husbandman took his servants
and beat one and killed another and stoned another. Again, he
sent other servants, more than the first, and they did unto
them likewise. Last of all, he sent unto them
his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen
saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and let
us seize on his inheritance. This was a premeditated murder.
And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and
slew him. When the Lord, therefore, of
the vineyard cometh, what will He do to those husbandmen? They
say unto Him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and
let out His vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render
Him the fruits in their season. Jesus now applies the parable
to the men who answered. He said to them, Did you never
read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected?
The same has become the head of the corner? This is the Lord's
doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore say I unto
you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to
a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall
fall on this stone shall be broken But on whomsoever it shall fall,
it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and
Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake
of them. But when they sought to lay hands
on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet."
The multitude thought Jesus was a prophet. What is this parable
teaching us? It's teaching us... The severe
judgment that came on these men who stood before the Lord Jesus
Christ. God had entrusted His gospel
to the nation of Israel. It says in Hebrews chapter 4
that the gospel was preached to them as well as unto us. And
clearly, if the Lord Jesus Christ says He's going to take the kingdom
of God from them and give it to another nation, bringing forth
the fruits of it, outwardly, at least, that gospel had been
given to them. But the leaders of that nation
failed to believe, they failed to preach the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the Lamb of God. They failed to do that for the
salvation of His people. So when God sent His servants
in the Old Testament, throughout the Old Testament, to that nation,
His prophets, when He sent His prophets to that nation, what
did they do? To the prophets that were from
their own countrymen, God raised up and gave them the gospel.
They spitefully entreated them. They stoned some of them. They
beat some of them. They threw Jeremiah into a pit,
if you remember. They killed some of them. They
wanted to kill others. And so, God sent more prophets. You remember the parable we just
read, the man who owned the vineyard, he must have had a large, he
must have owned quite a bit because he had enough land that out of
all the land he owned, he decided to build a vineyard in one. And
if you've ever been to a vineyard, they usually occupy a fair amount
of land. Big enough that he would have
in the middle of it a wine press and a tower so that the The husbandmen
could watch to make sure someone wasn't coming in to steal. So
the land owner in this parable owns a vast amount and he owns
all the vineyard and the fruit produced by that vineyard. And
so when these men, the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to, In the
parable, they represent the whole nation of Israel, especially
their leaders, but also those who follow them who did not take
the gospel that God had given them and bring it to the poor.
Because in Psalm 80, verse 8, Let me read that verse to you.
I'm just taking that one verse out of the entire chapter of
Psalm 80. He says this about the Lord. He says in the prayer, they're
ascribing this to God. He says, Thou hast brought a
vine out of Egypt, Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted
it. Thou preparest room before it,
and hast caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land.
So the vineyard here represents the entire nation of Israel.
God brought them out of Egypt. He brought them through the wilderness.
He brought them into the land of Canaan. And He gave them.
He gave them advantages and blessings no other nation in the world
had. And yet, though He gave them, entrusted them with the
oracles of God, it says in Romans chapter 3, though He entrusted
them with that, they didn't take, they didn't understand that Christ
was in those scriptures. And so they didn't believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ themselves, and they did also, they did not
preach Christ to the people so there was no fruit. And the fruit
spoken of here is the fruit of those who see and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans chapter 1, in verse
13, I'll just read this verse to you. When Paul was writing
the gospel to the Romans, he says this in verse 13. And verse
11, he says, I long to see you, that I may impart to you some
spiritual gift, to the end you may be established. That is,
that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith,
both of you and me. Now, I would not have you ignorant
brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come to you, but was let hitherto,
that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among
other Gentiles. So the fruit that's spoken of
there in Romans chapter 1 verse 13 is the result of the preaching
of the gospel to God's people and His people believing. In
John chapter 15, Jesus said this to His 11 apostles. In John 15-16
he says, "...you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and
ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and
that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever you shall ask
of the Father in my name, He may give it you." When the gospel
was preached by the apostles, and those who heard it believed,
that was the fruit of God's vineyard, from God's vineyard. But the
Israelites, the nation, didn't do that. They rejected Christ. They weren't faithful to Him.
They didn't understand Christ. Remember what Jesus said to the
Pharisees in John 5, 39? You search the Scriptures. For
in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they that
testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have
life." So these men not only did not believe themselves, but
they actually failed to take the gospel to that nation. They
failed to faithfully carry the gospel to that nation. The result,
what they did instead of taking the gospel, is that they made
themselves an object of honor in the eyes of men. They didn't
keep the law, but they made up traditions and rules that allowed
them to claim they kept God's law. And so they set themselves
up before men as as examples of what they should
do, but actually they were hypocrites, because their obedience was only
occasional, and it was only to their traditions, and it was
only outward. So everything they did, they
did to be seen of men, for the praise of men. They actually
robbed God, they attempted to rob God of His glory in the eyes
of His people, And they also robbed people the blessing of
the gospel that they might be saved. That's a very bad thing. And so Jesus describes it. It
was going on in them. They certainly didn't bring the
gospel, but they evidenced their animosity, their hatred for God
and Christ because they took the prophets that God sent to
them. And they killed them. These were
the messengers who had the true message throughout scripture.
When you read the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, all
these things. These are prophets who take God's
word to that nation. Primarily to that nation. To
correct them for their idolatry, their unbelief, and their opposition
to the truth of God. So in the parable of the two
sons, remember, the unbelieving Jews rejected the testimony of
John the Baptist. But in this parable, in this
second parable, these murderous husbandmen, these unbelieving
Jews, rejected not John the Baptist, although he was God's messenger,
and whenever you reject God's messenger, you're rejecting God
himself. But they rejected prophet after prophet, and they finally
rejected the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Not only rejected Him,
but they planned His death, they took Him by their wicked hands,
and they crucified Him. And that is exactly what they
did. So in the parable there's a few things that are pointed
out here. Look first here, it says in verse
33, certain householder. Now this
word means he was a landowner or the landlord of this. Who is this in the parable? Well,
this is God. He's the one who owns all things. It is God who owns the world.
He created this world for himself, for his glory, for his purposes.
He's the sovereign Lord who gives eternal life in Christ by his
own will. Or He brings eternal judgment
on men according to His justice. According to His good will and
His justice. It's up to Him. We're in His
hand. In the hand of God. At the hand
of God either for mercy or for justice. And when we think about
that, it ought to humble us, like it should humble these men
here. The Word of God is meant to humble
proud men. It's to put us down in our opinion
of ourselves. And to raise up Christ in our
opinion to such a high degree that we realize that He alone
is worthy of all glory and all worship. And so that's what the
first thing in the parable is. It's the Lord God Himself who
owns all things. And He's the one who carved out
in this world a place for the nation of Israel. He carved it
out and He gave it to them. Remember the land of Canaan.
And God brought Israel out of Egypt, but for nearly 1500 years, They had the prophets, they had
all these things, and it was after that long period of time. Remember here it says in the
parable that the man who owned the vineyard, he gave the vineyard
to these husbandmen, he rented it out to them, and then he went
to a far country. That represents the fact that
God gave to Israel all these outward blessings, and then for
a long time left them with those. For a long time, approximately
1,500 years. And then finally, the Lord Jesus
Christ comes. He, the Son of God, is speaking
this parable to them at this time. They're about to take Him,
about to kill Him. Now, in this parable also there
are husbandmen. Clearly these are the elders,
the chief priests and the scribes, the leaders of the Jews who were
to keep the gospel and to preach it. But they failed to do that.
And all those who followed them were included in that group,
the husbandmen. They were entrusted with the
oracles of God, but they failed to do with it what they ought
to have done, to find Christ there. to believe on Him and
to preach Him. And so, in this parable, the
vineyard represents the nation of Israel, out of which God would
bring His people. We looked at Romans 9 last week. You know that God didn't save
everyone in that nation, did He? Did God save everyone ever
born to Abraham? Of course not. We know Ishmael
was never saved. And Isaac was. Did he save all
the children of Isaac? Well he only had two, Jacob and
Esau. And Jacob God loved, but Esau
He hated. So he didn't save Esau. And then
Jacob had all the rest of the nation of Israel born to him.
And we know that most in that nation perished in unbelief.
Especially these leaders right here in this time. They were
the ones who didn't believe, who rejected Jesus Christ. And we saw that in the last parable
about the two sons. They stood on the brink of eternal
judgment. They had rejected the Lord Jesus
Christ. The stone that God himself had
chosen as the head of the corner, the cornerstone of the building
of God, the temple of God, that's Jesus Christ. He's the foundation. Remember what Paul said in 1
Corinthians chapter 3? He says, there's no other foundation
that can be laid than Jesus Christ. He's the one that is laid, and
Paul says, and I'm a master builder. I've laid that foundation. I've
preached the gospel of Christ to you. But if another man comes
and builds on that foundation, something else like wood, hay
and stubble, that can't survive. It can't survive the tribulation
of anything, really. It's in our own lives, don't
you know this? That when you see and believe
the Lord Jesus Christ, it gives you stability to endure temptations,
to endure trouble and tribulations. You continue looking to Christ.
God gives you that grace and He gives you that comfort and
joy in believing. And it's knowing that your salvation
is entirely accomplished by Jesus Christ. That it gives you the
ability to survive the trouble of your life. And troubles in
this world, especially the trouble of your own inward sin. and the
trouble of God's judgment against us. Our shelter and our refuge
is in Jesus Christ alone. But if you build anything else
but that, if you build it on, say, let's talk about some common
things that people do in religion today. For example, men will
take science and try to introduce science as a basis for faith. Well look, science proves that
God created the world. And they go about doing that.
There's nothing wrong with showing the foolishness of those who
deny God created the world by science. But there is something
wrong with trying to build our faith on what science tries to
establish. Because God's word alone is the
basis of our faith. So that represents wood, hay
and stubble. And when men preach those things, it doesn't survive
tribulations of our lives. We don't find any lasting assurance
of hope, any confidence in what science says. We can only find
it in what God says. And so that's just an example
of that. But there's many things like that that people do. Men
preach morality. You gotta do this, you gotta
do that, you gotta stop this and stop that. And we begin to
focus our attention on ourselves. It takes our attention completely
off of Christ. There's nothing wrong with doing
right and avoiding the wrong. But there's something wrong with
doing it as an end in itself. Moses told Pharaoh, God says,
let my people go that they may serve me. Until we see Christ
and Him crucified as our all before God, we cannot serve the
Lord. We cannot know the Lord. We cannot
worship the Lord. We have to be free in Christ
before we can ever serve God. And so these men... These were
bad builders. These men not only didn't preach,
they didn't just preach wood, hay and stubble. They actually
preached against Christ. And so they were the wicked husbandmen. The vineyard was the nation of
Israel out of which God would bring His people. It says in
Deuteronomy... Chapter 32, verse 8. Isn't that
interesting? God carved out this nation. apart from all the rest of the
nations of the world, because He's focusing our attention,
in His Word, on that nation for a specific reason. To teach us
His choice of His people in Christ. The spiritual fulfillment of
that nation. And so we see that. All the things
God speaks about, the blessings He gave them throughout Scripture,
are about how He set them aside. So then, The husbandman, we've
already talked about that, but the fruit, again, is the conversion
of God's people, His elect, out of every nation when the gospel
is preached. Remember what I read in John
15, verse 16, Jesus told the eleven apostles, you haven't
chosen me. You did not choose me. I have
chosen you and ordained you, that you should bring forth fruit
and that your fruit should remain." How often do we think about religion,
we think about our life as Christians as being a life that we live
to fulfill conditions so that God will bless us. That's not
the way it works. God gives everything to us. If we're not saved by grace,
we're not saved. Salvation is by grace alone,
or it's not at all. It's entirely up to you, and
if it's up to you, then you'll have to face God and answer God
in judgment. Now, the husbandman murdered
the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, in the same way that the
builders rejected the stone. Jesus said this in verse 40 42, look at this. He says, "...Jesus
said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures, the stone
which the builders rejected, the same has become the head
of the corner?" This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in
our eyes. The husbandmen in the parable
who took care of the vineyard. When the prophets came, they
rejected them. And finally, time after time,
when the Son of God came, they actually killed Him. The Son
in the parable was the Son of God in reality. They killed Him. In the same way, God prophesied
in Psalm 118, verse 23 and 24, that the builders who built the
building, which was God's church, who were supposed to build the
building, they looked at the Lord Jesus Christ, the cornerstone,
that stone that's set first in the building, all the walls must
conform to it, the foundation, everything is resting on that
stone. But they took the cornerstone
and they rejected it. Just like these men rejected
the Lord Jesus Christ, as the men in the parable rejected the
son of the landowner. And so Jesus says here, He says,
Therefore I say unto you, in verse 43, The kingdom of God
shall be taken from you and given to a nation, bringing forth the
fruits thereof. So the nation that was taken
from them, that nation, the nation of Israel, was represented by
the husbandmen. And Christ is saying, I'm going
to take the kingdom of God from you and give it to another nation.
What nation was that? Was that the Soviet Union? China? United States? Bolivia? I mean,
not Bolivia. Brazil? Some other nation in
the world? No. That nation is the nation
spoken of in 1 Peter chapter 2. And I'll read this to you
if you want to know where it's at. It's in 1 Peter chapter 2
and verse 6 through 9 he says, I'm at the wrong chapter, wrong
book. He says in 1 Peter chapter 2, Wherefore, verse 6, also it
is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded, not be ashamed. Unto you, therefore,
which believe, he is precious. He is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the chief cornerstone. But unto them which be disobedient,
The stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense,
even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient,
whereunto they were appointed." What's God saying there? When we individually reject the
Lord Jesus Christ, we're throwing out, in our unbelief, we're throwing
out the cornerstone of God's temple. the one stone in that
temple that God holds the most precious, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're the lively stones built
into that temple because of Jesus Christ. But when we reject Him,
then that stone becomes to us a stone of stumbling. We don't
hurt the stone. But the stone, but we hurt ourselves
when we don't believe the gospel. And so here he says that those
who don't believe are disobedient. Because unbelief is disobedience. And when we disobey the gospel
in unbelief and receive the judgment of God against us, we're receiving
what God appointed for all those who disobey the gospel. Which
is what he says in the end of verse 8. Whereunto they were
appointed. All who disobey the gospel are
appointed to wrath. And so that's what that is saying.
Verse 9, he says, but you, you who believe, you to whom Christ
is precious, you to whom God has given this gift of faith
to look to Christ only, he says, you are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. special to
God, that you should show forth the praises of Him who hath called
you out of darkness into His marvelous light." What made the
difference between those who were chosen and precious and
peculiar in that verse. It was God's choice of them,
wasn't it? What made the difference between
them and all the rest? Was it because they came up with
what conditions needed to be met in order to make God's salvation
work? No. Salvation is not dependent
upon us at all. It's only dependent upon what
God has done in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why Christ
is precious to us. That's why He is a sure foundation. Because if salvation depends
on me or you, or our sanctification, or our eventual coming to glory
in heaven. If any of it depends upon me
or you, we're the weak link in the whole chain and it's going
to fail. It's going to fail. There's no
way it cannot fail if it depends on me. But if it depends on God
entirely, from first to last and everything in between, it
cannot fail. That's why Christ is a sure foundation
and the cornerstone. And so he says here in Matthew,
back in Matthew 21, he says, that in verse 44, "...whosoever
shall fall on this stone shall be broken." When we don't believe
Christ, We stumble. And if we continue, if God does
not intervene by His grace and rescue us out of our unbelief
to look to Christ only, then we're going to not only be broken,
but it says, "...on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind
him to powder." When we stumble, that represents our condition
in unbelief. when we stumble at the word.
Like Paul. Paul the Apostle. At first he
stumbled, didn't he? He rejected Christ. He was persecuting
Christians. And so many others. These men
here obviously had stumbled. But he says, he gives them this
solemn warning. But on whomsoever it, that stone,
shall fall, it will pulverize him, grind him to powder. There
won't be any remedy after that. Which means that when God When
God's grace is taken away from us. So at the end of our life,
or whenever He takes away the ministry of the Gospel in our
lives. Takes away opportunity for us to hear that Gospel. And
His Spirit to quicken us, to make us alive. Then we face eternal
damnation. That's what this grinding to
powder means. And so the chief priests and the Pharisees understood
this, and they didn't do what they should have done, did they?
Christ spoke against them. They understood that, but what
did they do? Did they say, oh man, look, this
is speaking against us. This is exactly what we are.
What should we do? And cry out to him, Lord, what
should we do? They didn't do that. They said,
what can we do to kill him? They actually fulfilled the parable,
which had not yet been fulfilled entirely. They fulfilled it in
their hatred and envy of him. Look at Psalm chapter 2. This
is prophesied in Psalm chapter 2. He says in verse 1, why did
the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain
thing. The heathen are the Gentiles
and the people are the Jews. Why do they collectively, together,
imagine a vain thing? What do they imagine? Well, verse
2. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take
counsel together against the Lord. And against his anointed. The word anointed means Christ.
Against his Christ. Saying, let us break their bands
asunder and cast away their cords from us. In other words, they're
saying, we don't want God to rule over us. Verse 4. He that sits in the heavens shall
laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. But, listen
to verse 6, "...Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of
Zion." Even though they plotted against Christ to kill Him, and
carried out their plot, and actually killed Him. Verse 6, "...Yet
have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." Not upon Zion
on earth, but the New Jerusalem. The Heavenly Jerusalem. The Church
of the Living God. I will declare the decree. The
Lord has said to me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten
thee. If you look at Acts 13 verse
39, this is speaking about the resurrection of Christ. When
God raised his son from the dead, he declared him openly to be
the son of God. He wasn't born to be the son
of God. He was the son of God, but he
was declared at his resurrection openly to be the son of God with
power. Romans chapter 1 verse 5. So
he says, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask
of me And I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." What's
God saying? To His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in prophecy, before it ever happened. In fact, in eternity, He says,
ask me, and I'll give you the heathen for your inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. What
is He speaking about? The elect of God. God took His
people and He gave them to His Son. He chose them in His Son
and forever deposited them in the hands of His Son to save
and to bring to glory. Ask me, I'll give them. You're
the King. You're the one who sat on the
hill of Zion. Because of His work on the cross, because He
put away our sins, answered God's justice and fulfilled His righteousness,
God set Him on the throne of heaven. And he says, ask, and
I'll give you all the Gentiles in my will for your inheritance. He says, verse 9, Thou shalt
break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. This is all those who oppose
the Lord Jesus. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the
earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and
rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,
and you perish from the way. Kiss the Son. See what God is
saying here? This is what these men were supposed
to do. He's warning them. You better
acknowledge, you better own the Lord, that Jesus who stands before
you is the Lord of Glory. Kiss the Son, fall down, worship
Him. Worship Him. He's the Lord of
Glory. But they didn't. They didn't. What does it mean
to kiss the sun? Well it says here in the latter
part of verse 12, That's when the stone falls on you, it pulverizes
you, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in Him." Do you see that? The message of the gospel
is, look to Christ. Look to Christ. And so we ask
the question, when we look at the end of this parable, how
is the gospel taught in this parable? All we see here is the
fact that these men Wickedly opposed Christ. Wickedly refused
to believe Him. Taught the people in opposition
to the gospel to their own destruction. And caused men to follow them
instead of looking to God and glorifying God for His mercy
in Christ alone. What gospel do we see in that?
They took the prophets and killed them. They took the Son of God
and killed Him. And they themselves faced eternal judgment. Is there
any gospel in that? The answer is, yes, there's abundant
gospel here. Notice what happens in the parable. What happened? The landowner
did something that none of us would think of doing. We would
never have done that. If I owned land and built a vineyard
and did all that was described here, and then rented it out
to others to take care of it, to bring me the fruit of that,
and I sent my servant to them to collect from them, and they
took my servant and they beat him and mistreated him and even
stoned him and killed him, what would I do? I would come there
with my armies and destroy them right then, wouldn't you? But
no, the landowner sends another servant, and another, and another,
and keeps sending these servants. Finally he says, reverence my
son, my only son, my well-beloved son, as it says in Mark 12, he
says, I'll send him. And so he sent his son. What kind of a landowner would
do this? It seems like he's just, you
would think that he realizes these men are so perverse, they're
just going to kill your own well-beloved son. Didn't God understand this
about this nation? Didn't he understand when he
sent his son to them, they were only going to kill him? Of course
he did. Look at Acts chapter 2. This
is the gospel in this account. Acts chapter 2, look at it, where
it says there, Because the Lord Jesus Christ came to his own,
his own countrymen, and his own received him not. Remember John
1 verse 11? But here in Acts chapter 2, it
is after the day of Pentecost. God has poured out his spirit.
Peter stands up to preach. Who is he preaching to? He's
preaching to the ones who actually took the Lord Jesus Christ and
by wicked hands crucified him on the cross. The gospel is being
sent to those murderers. He says in verse 22, You men
of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God
did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know,
verse 23. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. This was God's eternal will. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to fulfill that will. He says, "...you have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God has raised
up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible
that he should be holden of it." What is this saying? Doesn't
it remind you of what Joseph's brothers did to Joseph? They
plotted against him. They wanted to kill him. And
they would have, but God and His providence devised another
means for them. But they did throw him into the
pit. They did sell him into Egypt. And he did go away, and to his
father he had died. And then they stood before Joseph.
And they didn't know him. And Joseph eventually makes himself
known to them through Judah, the surety. And at the end of
Jacob's life, after Jacob died, his brothers come to him and
said, you know, Jacob, our father said before he died that you
should forgive us, and so on. They didn't understand. And Joseph
pours out his heart. In Genesis 50, verse 20, he says,
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. You see, by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, God took His Son, delivered Him up
for His people. It says in Romans 8, verse 32,
that if God didn't spare His Son, but delivered Him up for
us all, all of God's people, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? And here we see in Acts 2, verse
23, it was by God's eternal counsel. Christ didn't die as a surprise,
nor did He encounter these wicked men and suffer at their hands
unexpectedly. When He saw them and spoke this
parable to them, He knew they were going to take Him. He knew
they were going to kill Him. That was in the parable. But
He also knew that as Joseph, as God prophesied through the
historical account of Joseph, that God would take the Lord
Jesus Christ and deliver Him up to their will, that through
their murderous intentions and their killing Him, He would actually
bear the sins of His people, and put them away, and answer
God's justice, and fulfill His righteousness in their place,
so that all God chosen Him would answer God in Him, and God would
receive from Christ for them. And in doing so, God raised him
from the dead because he received full satisfaction to his law,
full honor to his law and his justice, and raised him from
the dead so that all for whom he stood received the answer
of God. Justified! Justified! Christ couldn't save his people
unless he gave himself to do the will of God, which included
giving himself into the hands of these wicked men to do their
will. Now look at Acts chapter 3 verse 26. Peter is again preaching
in Acts chapter 3 to the same people who killed the Lord Jesus
Christ. And look at verse 26. Unto you
first God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him To what? To bless you in turning away
every one of you from His iniquities. This is amazing grace, isn't
it? That here these men who stumbled
at the Word, who stumbled at Christ and rejected Him, would
hear the very Gospel, the news of what Christ did for sinners.
Peter himself, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, says, unto
you first, Unto you first, God having raised up his Son." Isn't
that the amazing grace of God? Unto you first who killed God's
Son. Now look at Romans chapter 9
again. Romans chapter 9. He says in... When I get there I'll tell you
what he says. Romans chapter 9. He says in verse 27. The question
comes up in Romans chapter 9. If God gave all these blessings
to this nation of Israel, then why wasn't the entire nation
saved? Why did so many in that nation
perish? Did they not meet the condition?
That wasn't the reason they perished in unbelief. That wasn't the
reason only some of them were saved. It was the justice of
God that they perished in their unbelief, but the underlying
root cause of some of them in that nation being saved was God's
eternal purpose to save some. Look at verse 27. Isaiah also
crieth concerning Israel, the nation, though the number of
the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant
shall be saved. A very small remnant. For he will finish the work and
cut it short in righteousness. What God does is always righteous.
Because a short work would the Lord make upon the earth. And
as Isaiah said before, except the Lord of Sabaoth, that means
the Lord of Hosts, had left us a seed. If he had not left us
some who were the true seed of God, the true spiritual seed,
he says, we had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah. we would have been utterly destroyed. Revelation, it says the nation
of Israel was like Sodom and Egypt. What shall we say then,
that the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness have
attained to righteousness even the righteousness of faith but
Israel which followed after the law of righteousness has not
attained to the law of righteousness wherefore because they sought
it not by faith but as it were by the works of the law for they
stumbled at that stumbling stone as it is written behold I lay
in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense and whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed why Why did God choose
some, choose to save some? If He hadn't chosen some, what
would have happened? The entire nation would have
been destroyed. Paul asked this question in Romans
chapter 3 verse 9. What then? Are we better than
they? If we consider these wicked men
who killed the Lord Jesus Christ, ask the question to yourself.
What? Am I better than they? And Paul answers it, no, in no
wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they
are all under sin. And then he launches into the
next few verses, proving it from scripture. But then he says in
verse 21 of Romans 3, "...but now the righteousness of God
without the Law is manifested, which is witnessed by the Law
and the Prophets, which is the righteousness of God by faith
of Jesus Christ to all them that believe." The Gospel teaches
us that we're no different than these men. And God in His mercy,
in His sovereign mercy, sent the gospel to the very men who
killed Him in order to save His elect out from those rebels,
those murderous rebels. And we say they were so despicable.
How could such a despicable people be saved by the Lord? The answer
is, if He saved any, they were all despicable. If God hadn't
saved some out of this world, the whole world would be destroyed
under the wrath of God, under the just wrath of God. But He
saved some. And that's the Gospel. That God
looks to His Son for His people, and God received from His Son
Christ voluntarily gave himself for our sins." That's the gospel. It's preached unto you the forgiveness
of sins in Christ. And so we ask the question, well,
then how can I know that I'm one of His? How can I know? Remember
Psalm 8, kiss the son lest he be angry with you and you perish
from the way. Blessed are all they that trust
in him. Do you look to Christ only or
do you look to something else? If you look to something else
or something in addition to Christ, then you have not yet trusted
Him. But if you look to Christ only, then you're hanging your
eternal life and destiny on Him. And you're saying, you're coming
to God and saying, Lord, like the publican in Luke 18, 13,
Lord, look upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Receive Him, satisfaction
and righteousness from Him for me. And that's what these men
did not do. Some of them, perhaps, even to
those speaking there, the Lord Jesus Christ later would save
them. But salvation is in His hand, and we're at His mercy.
Let's pray. Lord, we pray that You would
give us this grace to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You've
given us such a promise that all who call, all who come, none
will be cast out. All those will find the Lord
Jesus to be a faithful Savior. a Savior able to save to the
uttermost, save the worst of sinners. If it weren't for this
sovereign grace, there would be no hope for us, O Lord. And
so we come to You, and we pray, Lord, that You would give us
the grace to humble ourselves and to kiss the Son and trust
in Him alone and not think to add to what He's done, not think
of ourselves as contributing and not look to our experience
or anything in us, but look to Christ alone. In his name we
pray, amen.