Now, turn back in your Bibles
to Matthew 21. Matthew 21, the portion of Scripture
that Brother Aaron just finished reading, this parable that we're
going to look at this morning. As we approach this parable,
let me just make a few comments by way of introduction. Now,
if I had to reduce the Bible down to its most basic issue,
the simplest way of stating it. I would probably go back to the
book of Job, the Old Testament book of Job, and list the two
or three times there that certain questions are asked, and they
are answered in the book of Job. And those questions go something
like this, how can he that is born of woman, and what that
means to be born in a fallen state, a fallen nature, born
dead in trespasses and sin, born of Adam, how can such a person
be clean in the sight of God? How can that person be saved,
forgiven, and be pure and holy and righteous in the sight of
God? It's asking another way twice. How can a man, a sinner,
be just with God? Now, that's the issue. That's
the most basic issue of the Bible. I'm not trying to oversimplify,
but that's what the book is about, the question that is answered
from Genesis to Revelation. And, of course, the answer to
that question, how can a sinner be justified? How can man who
is born of woman be clean? is by God's grace and mercy in
the person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's why Christ is the subject, the center, the heart, the object
of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, the
thread, the scarlet thread that runs from Genesis to Revelation
is His blood, His righteousness. Now, that's the only way God,
who is holy and just, can look at me and say, clean. through
Christ, by His blood and righteousness. That's the only way God, who
is holy, can look at any of you or me and say, justified, righteous,
right with God. And there's no other way. There's
absolutely no other way. Now, men and women throughout
history, since Adam's fall, have sought to devise other ways,
go to other grounds, methods, ideas, philosophies, imaginations,
to sneak somewhere in the mix man's works, man's reputation,
man's honor, man's person. And that is just the issue, really,
of these three parables. There's three parables here.
Last week I dealt with the parable of the two sons, beginning there
in verse 28 of Matthew 21. There's two sons, he said. The
father said to one son, go and work for me. And the one son
said, I will not. He just rebelled. He said, I
will not go work for you. I will not obey you. That's man
by nature. That's our Adamic nature. That's
us in ourselves, isn't it, as we're born. But then the son
comes to repentance. God brought him to repentance,
and he turned around. That's what repentance is about.
And he served his father. He came to the second son, and
he said, well, you go serve me. And he said, I will. I'll do
it. And then he didn't do it. And
Christ asked the question, now, which one did the will of his
father? Well, obviously, the one who first said he would,
but then repented. Not the one who said he would.
And didn't you ever have anybody tell you they'd do something
and they didn't do it? Well, that's not the one who did the
will of his father. And in there he was showing an
example of the religious Pharisees and Sadducees who outwardly seemed
to worship God, and to the people, the way they looked at things,
seemed to obey God, but they didn't. They didn't. And then
he compared them, or he contrasted them rather, to the lowest stum
of the earth in the Jewish mindset, that is, the harlots And the,
what is it? Publicans. I was trying to think
of publicans. I couldn't do it. The harlots
and the publicans. And he said the harlots and the
publicans will enter the kingdom of heaven before you. What? He's talking about the harlots
and the publicans that come to repentance. Like that publican
in the parable of Luke 18. God be merciful to me, the sinner.
One who is brought low, brought down with a broken and contrite
heart over sin by the Holy Spirit, born again, regenerated, and
sees the glory and the majesty and His need of Christ and His
blood and righteousness. And now we come to the second
parable here, which is the parable of the wicked husbandmen or vine
dressers. I call it this. This is the title
of the message. A sad parable of rejection. A sad parable of rejection. And then in Matthew 22, there's
another parable. I preached on this one before,
but I'm going to preach on it again about the marriage supper. A king gives a marriage supper
for his son. Now, all three of these parables, in essence, I
want you to see this now, because there's a lot of talk today about
Israel. I want you to see this now. The
nation Israel, Palestine, and all that. But these three parables,
and you can go back and read them again, you know how they
come about. Christ was preaching, and the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
the Herodians, and all the leaders of the people, they came and
they wanted to know about what authority is He saying these
things. They were saying things He was saying things they didn't
like. He was saying things that expose
them for the lost, self-righteous religionists that they were.
Now, don't get in your mind that these were fellows walking around
with horns and a tail, or that they had fangs, or they were
just slapping up on people. These were the men who everybody
looked up to now and respected and followed. These were the
teachers, the preachers, the scribes. They wrote the commentaries.
So get this in your mind. But Christ said, He called them
vipers. He called them open graves. He
said outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly are ravening
wolves. Open graves. And so He's speaking
to them. He's telling them that their
way of salvation is a self-righteous way that will only lead to destruction. It's the way of works religion.
Working your way into God's favor. And they didn't like it. They'd
been working hard for a long time. They had a lot of experiences. They had a lot of religion under
their belt. And add to that the fact that
they were physical children of Abraham and circumcised, and
now they're trying to keep the Law of Moses, and you're telling
me that they're lost? You remember? in the parable
or in the actual event where the Lord confronted the rich
young man. He said, I've kept those commandments from my youth
up. What like I yet? Tell you what you like. You like
grace. You like conviction. You need to look to Christ. He's
your only hope. You're a sinner. And Christ proved
that to him. Well, they didn't like that.
You calling us sinners? We're the religious leaders.
We tell people how to live, how not to live. What to eat? What
not to eat? What to drink? What not to drink?
We tell them that, you see. We hold seminars. We fill stadiums. And he said, you're the blind
leading the blind. And you all fall in the ditch
together. What's the problem? Well, it goes back to that basic
issue. How does God justify sin? How can a man born of woman be
clean? That's the issue. How can a sinner
be saved? It's either by grace or it's
by works. It cannot be both. One cancels out the other. And
works won't get it for us. That's the place we're in. You
say, well, maybe it will for me. Well, try it. And you'll
see where it'll get you. God's Word says it won't. For
by grace are you saved. Through faith. That is looking
to Christ. Not of yourselves. Not of works. And that not of
yourself, the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast." So here, that's the issue now. So then they come to him
and they say, now, where do you get off saying what you're saying? Who do you think you are? What's
your authority to say this? And so he just confronts them
with the question. You remember, he said, well,
tell me about John the Baptist. What was his authority? And they
knew they were in a pickle there. They knew they had a problem.
They said John wasn't sin of God, that would make him unpopular
with the people because John was loved by the people. If they
said that John was sin of God, then they'd have to answer the
other question, why didn't you do what John said? Why didn't
you come to repentance? Why didn't you stop trying to
earn your salvation and fall at the feet of Christ? That's
what John preached, salvation by grace. John pointed sinners
to Christ. He said, I'm not the Messiah,
He is. I can baptize you with water,
but He can baptize you with the Spirit. He has that power. He
said, I'm not even worthy to untie His shoes. He said, He
must increase, I must decrease. Look to Him. That's what John
said. Why didn't you do that if John was sent from God? Well,
they didn't want to answer that, so they just said, we don't know.
And that's when he began these parables. Well, in these three
parables, you see here what you might say the summation of the
history of Israel under the Old Covenant up to the time of Christ's
arrival here on earth. As that parable of two sons showed
how the leaders of Israel and the majority of the people were
so steeped in self-righteousness that they would not repent. They
counted themselves righteous and they despised others. We're
righteous, but we despise the harlots and the publicans. No
way they can get into heaven. Christ said the publicans and
harlots who had repented would go into the kingdom of God and
not the moral majority. And here's the parable of the
wicked husbandman, the farmer, the one who owns the land. or
the wicked husband, but the ones who work the land. And the vine
graces. And it's a sad parable of rejection. And what he's teaching in this
parable is basically this. There is absolutely no hope of
salvation for any sinner, Jew or Gentile, who rejects Christ
and His finished work. There's no hope of salvation.
Now, let's look at the parable. Look at verse 33. Now, hear another
parable the Lord says. He says, there was a certain
householder, that's the farmer, that's the owner of the vineyard,
the owner of the field, which planted a vineyard and hedged
it round about and digged a winepress in it, built a tower and led
it out to husbandmen, vine dressers, and went into a far country.
Now, this vineyard brings to mind Israel. If you'll look back
in the book of Isaiah, let me just show you this. We studied
this. last year, Isaiah chapter 5. It's common in the Old Testament,
especially here to speak of Israel, the nation, as God's vineyard.
And he says, verse 1 of Isaiah 5, Now will I sing to my well-beloved
a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved
hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he finched it, and
gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest
vine, and built a tower in the midst of it. You see the analogy
there right with Matthew 21. And also made a winepress therein. You see, this is talking about
the nation Israel under the old covenant. And he looked that
it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes,
those are sour grapes. In other words, the unsaved.
And he says, And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard, what could have
been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore?
Why? For this reason, when I looked,
that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes.
And now go to, go on. He says, I will tell you what
I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof.
That is their protection, their border. And he says, And it shall
be eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be
trodden down, and I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned,
nor digged, taken care of, but there shall come upon briars
and thorns. I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord
of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant
plant. And he looked for judgment, but behold, oppression, for righteousness. He looked for righteousness,
but behold, a cry. That's where this analogy comes
from. Look back at Matthew 21 now. So the vineyard automatically
brings to mind the nation Israel under the old covenant. Now listen
to me. Israel, the nation Israel, had a special, special, special
place among the nations. They were a distinct people.
They were a favored people. They were a blessed people temporally,
earthly speaking. A special people. Let me just
read you some scripture. You don't have to turn to all
these. If you want to write them down, go ahead. But here in Deuteronomy
chapter 32, I want you to listen to this. Mark this down. Deuteronomy
32 beginning at verse 7. Listen to the words of this passage,
Moses' psalm. He says, Remember the days of
old, consider the years of many generations, Ask thy father,
and he will show thee thy elders, and they will tell thee." Now
listen to this, "...when the Most High divided to the nations
their inheritance. When He separated the sons of
Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number
of the children of Israel." That's pretty special, isn't it? He
set the bounds of the nations, the sons of Adam, that's the
nation, that's everybody. according to the number of the
children of Israel, verse 9 says, for the Lord's portion is His
people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. You know what that's saying?
That's saying in the Old Testament, everything revolved around Israel.
That's amazing, isn't it? So this Israel here, now they
were special. And I'll tell you what, you cannot
understand the Bible unless you understand what God did and worked
through Israel. And I'll show you that in just
a moment. But I'll be honest with you, I don't even believe
you can understand human history without understanding that. I
was reading a little portion from a history book or a summation
of the crux of human history, and there was only one mention
made of the nation Israel. That fellow didn't know what
he was talking about. You can't understand world history
without understanding how God worked through Israel. Now, back
here in this parable, obviously God is the householder here,
isn't He? He's the one that owns the cattle
and the thousands. God owns this world. This is
my Father's world, as we sing that hymn. He's the creator. He's the originator.
That's why we speak of God as the owner of the church. He owns
His church. Christ owns His church. He bought
it lock, stock, and barrel for the price of His precious blood.
We don't own the church. I don't own you, and you don't
own me. God owns us all. And it's by election, by sovereign
election, it's by redemption, and it's by adoption, and it's
by regeneration. All the work of God. owns this
lock, stock and barrel. So God is the householder here,
the owner of the vineyard, and it was through Israel that God
would bless the world. That's why I say you can't really
understand world history unless you understand Israel and how
God used them. Let me just read you that in
Genesis 12. That's God's covenant with Abraham.
It's the first place where God made the covenant with Abraham
in time, Genesis 12-1. Now listen to this. He says,
Now the Lord hath said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land
that I will show thee. And I will make thee a great
nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great. And
thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless
thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed." That's Abraham. How did that
take place? Through the nation Israel. God
using providentially, powerfully the nation Israel. Now look at
something here, and I'm not trying to confuse you on this, but I
want you to see this. Back here in the parable of Matthew
21. Here, the vineyard is not the
nation of Israel itself as a nation, but it rather refers to the special
advantages and opportunities and privileges that were given
to Israel as a nation, the chosen seed under the old covenant.
Because later on, Christ reveals this, how the vineyard is the
kingdom of God. And He says this, look at verse
43 of Matthew 21. Now He says, Therefore say I
unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you. Taken
away from Israel. Now He's not saying I'm going
to take Israel away from Israel. He's taking the vineyard away
from them. His kingdom away from them. His kingdom in Israel,
the kingdom of God in Israel, was under the Old Covenant. That
was the ministration of God and His truth in type and picture
and shadow through that nation in the Old Covenant. And what
was it for? Let's simplify that. There are two main reasons for
the Old Covenant. There are a lot of reasons we
can talk about. Now, let's just get it down to brass tacks. There's
two main reasons. Number one, to convince them
of sin and their need of salvation by grace. Number two, to point
them to Christ, the coming Messiah, for all salvation. That's what
that old covenant was all about. Moses wrote of me, Christ said. That's right. He says, you do
search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life. They are they which testify of me. He took his disciples
and set them down before he ascended into glory, and he took them
out of Moses, the law, and the prophets, and the songs, the
things concerning himself, how he must come and die on the cross,
put away the sins of his people, be buried, and raised again the
third day. That's what it was all about.
Now that's the Kingdom of God. It's Christ's rule on this earth
from the time of His administration. You see, there was that old covenant
administration. Now we're under the new covenant.
But for a while, for about 1,500 years, it was given to the nation
Israel. And they were to take the things
of God and set them forth as a nation to all people. So the vineyard is the kingdom
of God, specifically the revelation and ministration of His rule
and His gospel given to Israel under the Old Covenant. The tabernacle,
the priesthood, all of that, the Sabbath. Now the husbandmen,
now he mentioned these husbandmen here in verse 33, or vine dressers. You know who they are? They are
Israel's leaders. That would be the chief priests,
that would be the scribes, that would be the elders, the scribes,
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and all their followers. In fact,
Mark, in his version, this parable is in all three, Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, and in his version of it, he talks about the people.
But you see, you can't separate the people from their leaders
and the leaders from their people. It's the blind leading the blind.
They'll all fall in the ditch together. The reason we claim
to be Christian is because we follow Christ. And you cannot
separate Christ from his people in that. So the leaders and their
followers, therefore it's the whole physical nation of Israel. Look at verse 45. He says, And
when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they
perceived that he spake of them. You're talking about me. You're
talking about us. and everybody who follows us.
You see, if somebody is your leader, and they go against the
Word of God, and you follow them, don't think you're off the hook.
You're going against the Word of God, too. That's right. Don't say, well, he led me. Don't
be like Aaron. They made me make that golden
calf. Oh, you're responsible, Aaron.
They are too. But you are. So if your leaders, whoever you
choose to be your leader, lead you wrong, you're just as wrong
as they are. And that's what this is all about.
So they say, well, you're talking about me. Well, the problem was
this. Now, here's the thing. He's talking about the nation
Israel here when he talks about this. Look here in verse 33 again.
A certain householder, that's God, planted a vineyard, That's
the kingdom of God, the administration of Christ under the Old Covenant.
He hedged it round about. He protected that nation for
1,500 years. I know they were punished and
chastised throughout their history, but you know, he kept them together.
Specifically, the tribe of Judah was kept together, because that's
the tribe that Christ would come from. And he says he hedged it
round about. He digged a winepress in it.
You know what the winepress symbolizes in the Old Testament and the
Old Covenant? Judgment of God against sin. Judgment of God
against sin. How did he build a wine press?
Well, he had the altar, had the blood of bulls and goats, had
the priesthood. He went into the holiest of all
one time a year, not without blood. He had the mercy seat.
You see, that's the wine press. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He
came to earth, He fulfilled the prophecy in the book of Isaiah
that spoke of Him walking the winepress of God's wrath alone. That's what He did. You see,
that physical winepress, that altar, that priesthood, the blood
of animals, were all types and pictures of the Lamb of God who
suffered under the winepress of God's wrath on the cross to
save His people from their sins. So there's the winepress, they
had it. They had it in type and picture. Christ had not yet come,
but God said He's coming. And that's what that winepress
represented, the blood of Christ, the righteousness of Christ,
the work that He would do to justify His people. And then
He says He built a tower. He built a tower. is emblematic
of God's watching over His people. He put the watchtower, the watchman,
that you find in the book of Isaiah and the book of Ezekiel,
and they were to watch out. That's the watch for the people.
In other words, there was a tower there. God is my high power,
a place of safety. And then it says, He let it out
to husbandmen. and went into a far country.
Now that's the leaders of the people. That would be the chief
priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees, and the elders. So
all of these. Now here's the problem. Here's
the problem. Under that old covenant, as a
majority now, as a majority, and I mean mainly the leaders
of the people all the way down to the majority of the people,
That ministration, that vineyard that God gave them to take care
of, that truth of the gospel of Christ, instead of humbling
Israel to confess their sins, to stand before God as sinners
seeking mercy and seek His mercy and grace in Christ as the promised
Messiah, they used it and turned it into a proud, self-righteous
religion of works. That was the problem. It's like
most folks do with this book right here today. This book is full of God's truth
when empowered by the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin and bring
you in guilty before God to have no hope of salvation but in Christ
and Him crucified. Do you see that? Do you believe
that? Break your heart. and show you
your need of Christ and His blood and His righteousness and God's
grace. That's what this book is all about. That's what that
Old Covenant was all about. But they didn't see it. And it
was because of the hardness of their hearts, self-righteousness.
Their self-willed blindness caused them to reject God's Gospel.
But look what happened here. Look at verse 34. It says, And
when the time of the fruit grew near, He sent His servants to
the husbandmen. that they might receive the fruits
thereof, the fruits of it. Now, there is a lot of argument
about when the time of the fruit grew near. But we can talk about
it in a lot of ways. Let's read on before we get to
that. Look at verse 35. And the husbandman took his servants,
and he beat one, they beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they
did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto
them his son. You know who that's talking about,
don't you? That's Christ. Saying that, they will reverence
my son. Here comes the sons, you see.
He sent servants. Now, what are these servants?
The servants who were sent in behalf of the landowner represent
the prophets, for example. During that time of the Old Covenant,
they had the prophets, you see. It had Samuel, Elijah, Elisha,
and you can go on down, Prophet Nathan, then you go to Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Micah, Hosea, all the prophets, you see. And what did
they do with the prophets? Look over at Matthew chapter
5. Listen to this. How did the majority of the nation
Israel respond to the prophets? Now, what did the prophets preach?
They preached Christ. That's what they... They preached
salvation by grace. For anybody who wants it, not
just Jew, but Gentile too. What authority do you have to
say that? Do they have to be circumcised?
No. Do they have to become a Jew? No. All they need to be is a
sinner seeking mercy. That's all they have to be. Well,
that's not good enough for us, they said. So they beat up one. They beat old Jeremiah. They
stoned another. They killed some. Look here in
Matthew chapter 5 verse 10. He says, Blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness sake. That's for the gospel,
for Christ's sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely. For my sake
rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. You can read about it all through
the Old Testament. God sent His Word. God sent His
prophets. They beat them, stoned them,
they killed them. You know, never has there been
a nation who persecuted prophets sent by God to them as the nation
Israel. And what's more than that, in
the days of our Lord, they applauded the prophets, built monuments
to them. Christ told them, He says, you
build monuments to them, your fathers persecuted them, and
you believe the same thing your fathers did. Age after age, they
responded in the same way. They persecuted the prophets,
stoned them, beat them, even sawed them in half. That's how
bad it got. Of all of the prophets, experienced
this persecution from the people of God. They got so sick and
hateful of hearing Jeremiah preach that they threw him down into
a well. That was where his pulpit was for a long time, at the bottom
of a well. And that's one thing that's characteristic
of the nation of Israel. It's the way they treated the
prophets. Now, the landowner's son here, Jesus Christ, look
at verse 37 again. He says in Matthew 20, "...the
last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence
my son." Verse 38, "...but when the husbandmen saw the son,"
when these evil vine dressers saw the son, "...they said among
themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and let
us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast
him out of the vineyard, and slew him." Many of the commentators
say that's indicative of what is spoken in Hebrews 13 and verse
12, how Christ was taken outside the camp and crucified. That's
because the religious leaders did not think Him worthy to be
persecuted and killed and executed in their holy city. He was a
malefactor. He was a criminal. He was a sinner.
That's what they called Him. That's why I will never call
my Lord a sinner. That identifies me with the ones
who executed Him. Let me tell you something now.
I'm getting to this. Don't think I'm up here playing the blame
game on Israel. Because I'm not. I was right
there with them when we persecuted them. You were too. And I'll
show you that in just a second. But you see what I'm saying?
I'm not going to identify with the enemies of our Lord anymore.
I did. But no more. But they slew Him.
They slew Him. The landowner's son, Jesus Christ,
notice God's purpose of grace to send His Son in spite of the
wickedness of men. Isn't that something? In spite of Israel's wickedness.
In spite of our wickedness. Isn't that something? But ultimately
they killed God's Son. Now let me give you these things
to think about. Number one, Christ is the final revelation of God
to men. He is the last one sent. God,
who at sundry times spoke in various ways by the prophets,
has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. Christ Himself
is the fulfillment, the completion, the highest echelon of the Word
of God. He is the living Word. There
is no more revelation from God. Christ is it. You reject Him,
you reject it all. For in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily." You are complete in Him. There is no
more revelation and there is no greater revelation. So to
despise and to reject the Son is to despise and reject God. He is God. Secondly, notice God's
sovereign mercy in sending His Son in spite of Israel's rejection.
Now, the thing about it is, you have got to understand, That
even though the majority of the nation rejected the prophets,
rejected God's Word, and ultimately rejected Christ, there was always
a small remnant of God's people in that nation. Isaiah speaks
of that. We're studying the prayer of
the remnant, and tonight, God's answer to that prayer. Isaiah
said, except the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of a great army, hath
left us a seed, we'd be like Sodom and Gomorrah. There was
always a small remnant. Well, you know something? That's
the way it is with the Gentiles, too. There's a remnant. God's going to save His people
to the praise of the glory of His grace, and no rejection,
no wickedness of men is going to stop Him. That's just it.
Here's the third thing. Don't think that Israel's guilt
in this matter lets me and you or any Gentile off the hook.
Turn to Acts chapter 4. Now, as I said, I'm not sitting
up here playing the blame game on Israel. I'm just dealing with
the parable, and that's who the Lord's talking about. But that
doesn't mean you and I are innocent. It doesn't mean that the Gentiles
are innocent. Let me tell you who crucified
the Lord of glory out of wickedness. Fallen mankind did it. I was there. You were there.
You say, well, how can you say that? That spirit, that evil
spirit and nature that indwells all men by nature was right there. Listen, you weren't born saved. I don't care who tells you you
were, you weren't. Grandma says you were. She's lying to you.
She don't know any better. Nobody is. And before you're
brought to Christ, you're an enemy of God. That's right. Now, I know there are some who
are brought to Christ at a younger age, some at an older age. But
before we're convicted by the Spirit and brought to Christ,
we're enemies of God. We turn thumbs down on Christ.
We yell, crucify Him. Every time we walk away unaffected
by the word of the gospel preached, we're saying, crucify Him. That's
right. But look at Acts chapter 4. Look
at verse 26. Who crucified the Lord of glory?
Well, now we know God is the ultimate first cause. It pleased
the Lord to bruise Him. But God did it for good in His
glory. We meant it for evil. Look at
Acts 4.26. The kings of the earth stood
up. That's not just the king in Israel. No, it wasn't just
Herod. But the kings of the earth stood up. And rulers were gathered
together against the Lord and against His Christ for of a truth
against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate. They weren't Jews. With the Gentiles. And the people of Israel were
gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done." Let me tell you something. Every
sinner can take responsibility for the murder of the Son of
God. Now again, God determined beforehand it was going to be
done. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
All that old covenant pictured and typified the death of Christ.
He knew He was born to die. He told His disciples, that's
the reason I come into this world. But we didn't know that. We did
it out of unbelief, out of spite, out of evil. And we're just as
responsible for the Jews. But this parable, and I'll go
back to the parable, this parable is making the point of how the
Lord operated through providence all this time, you see. So here's
the fourth point. Now listen to this. Don't imagine
that the fact that you have received Christ and not rejected Him puff
you up. Turn to John 1. You say, well,
they rejected the Son. Well, so did I for many years
and by nature. And let me tell you something,
if it weren't for God's sovereign mercy, I'd still be rejecting
the Son. And you would too. Isn't that
right? Look at John 1. He says in verse
11, Christ came unto his own, his own nation, and his own received
him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power, now that's the right or privilege, to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which
were born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the
will of man, but of God. If you have received Christ and
Him crucified and risen again, it's because you were born of
God, born again by the Spirit of God. Not because of your free
will, not because of the will of others, not because of your
family heritage, not because of anything good in you or in
me. It's the sovereign work of God. So we don't have anything
to brag about or boast about, do we? We'll look back at the
parable. Look at verse 41. Here's a serious
question that the Lord asked them. Look here. In verse 40, they slew the prophets,
they slew the Son of God. Verse 40, when the Lord therefore
of the vineyard cometh, what will he do to those husbandmen,
the ones who killed the prophets, the one who killed the Lord?
Verse 41, they say unto him, he will miserably destroy those
wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen,
which shall render him the fruit in their season. You see that? When the Lord of the vineyard
comes, He's going to get those guys. He's going to be just.
And He's going to take the vineyard away from them. He's going to
give it to others where there's fruit. And verse 42, Jesus saith
unto them, Did you never read in the Scriptures the stone which
the builders rejected, the same as become the head of the corner?
This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."
Have you read that? He's quoting here from the Psalms,
Psalm 118, verses 22-23. And he's showing here that all
of this was already promised, provided for, and prophesied
of by the Father. Have you read the Scriptures?
Don't you know the Scriptures? You're fulfilling the Scriptures. You
don't even know it. Isn't that amazing? How many
times has that happened? David prophesied of this. You
know, they recognized the justice of the household against wickedness.
Men know by nature that sin must be punished. What men by nature
don't know is how much we ourselves, because we're sinners, deserve
damnation. and the only way to escape that
damnation. That's what we don't know. I
can tell you right now, every one of you in here, everyone
outside this building believes that sin, the punishment fits
the crime. Isn't that what we say? Sin deserves death. What we don't know by nature
is that if God gave me what I deserved, it'd be death. What I don't know
by nature is how do I get out of this mess? How do you get
out of it? Only God knows, and only God
can reveal it. And their rejection of Christ
had been foretold in the Scriptures. The builders there, as mentioned
here and back in Psalm 118, are the religious leaders of the
nation. The stone which they rejected is Christ. Christ, many
times, is called the stone, the chief cornerstone, the tridestone.
Read Isaiah 28, verse 16. He's the stone. He's the stone
that the builders said it not. They counted Him nothing. That's
what happened. When he came, he was despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
We hid, as it were, our faces from him. We looked upon him
as nothing and set him aside. And you know what happened? He
went through the land of Palestine doing good. bringing forth miracles,
preaching the gospel. He went to Jerusalem. He was
arrested. He was put on that cross where the sins of his people
imputed to him. He died, was buried, and he arose
again the third day, and God made him the head cornerstone,
the chief cornerstone, the one that we counted as nothing. He
was made sin for us. Christ did no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. His righteousness
imputed to us. So he's the chief cornerstone
by God Himself. And on that chief cornerstone,
God built a new building. Look at it. Look at verse 43. Therefore I say unto you, the
kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation,
bringing forth the fruits thereof. Now what is that nation? Now
that word nation there, It's a Greek word that Matthew has
always, from up to this point and after this point, uses to
refer to the Gentiles. He's going to take the kingdom
away from you and he's going to give it to another nation.
You may have heard the term replacement theology. I've heard this term
today. People trying to make an alliance with the Jewish nation
today. Christians and Jews together.
And they say, well, the church has not replaced Israel. the
nation. Read this parable. And it was
always God's purpose. He said, I'm taking it away from
you, and I'm giving it to them. That's what the book says. Now, does that mean that there's
no hope for any Jew? No, Paul deals with that in Romans
11. He says, you Gentiles now who have the Gospel, who received
the Gospel, you did it by the grace of God, you've got nothing
to be proud of. Don't look down upon the Jews.
In fact, thank God for them. Because it was through them that
the Lord came. It was through them that the
Word was preserved, not by their power and goodness, but by God.
You've received a lot of benefits from them. They haven't received
any benefits from you. But don't you ever get to thinking,
Romans 11, this is what this is about, that there is no hope
for any Jew. God still has a remnant among
those people. And you know what? All Israel
is going to be saved. Not the nation, but the spiritual
nation. That's who has the vineyard now.
The church, made up of Jew and Gentile. God's people out of
every tribe, kindred, tongue and nation. Fellow citizens of
the household of God. That's who has the kingdom. And
I'm going to tell you something, he's not going to give it back
to the nation. There's no verse in this book
that says he's going to give it back to that nation, to the
nation Israel. It's in the hands of his church
under the power of Christ, who's the head of the church. And it's
going to stay right there until he comes again. The gospel. And listen to what he says in
closing. He says in verse 44, and whosoever shall fall on this
stone shall be broken, but on whosoever it shall fall, it will
grind him to powder. You reject Christ, there's nothing
but damnation and perishing. In verse 45, when the chief priests
and Pharisees had heard his parable, they perceived that he spake
of them, but when they sought to lay hands on him, now there's
their response. They wanted to kill him. That's what lay hands
on him means. It doesn't mean to pat him on
the back. It means to get him. They feared the multitude because
they took Him as a problem. How do you respond to the preaching
of Christ and Him crucified? Psalm 2 says, kiss the Son, embrace
Him, trust Him, fall at His feet lest He be angry. Blessed is
he who puts his trust in the Lord.