A Parable Of God’s Vineyard

Q: What does the Bible say about God's vineyard in Luke 20?

In Luke 20, God's vineyard represents His people, illustrating their rejection of His prophets and His Son, Jesus Christ. In the parable from Luke 20, God’s vineyard symbolizes His chosen people and reflects the history of Israel, where the leaders and the people rejected God's prophets sent to guide and admonish them. This parable emphasizes the rebellious nature of humanity throughout history and reveals God’s ultimate plan for redemption through Christ. The vineyard highlights God's ownership and His expectation for fruitfulness among His people, which they failed to produce, leading to dire consequences. Even more significantly, this parable foretells the rejection of Jesus by those who should have recognized Him as the Son of God, fulfilling the prophecies laid out in the Scriptures.

Q: How do we know Jesus is the promised seed?

Jesus is identified as the promised seed in Galatians 3:16, fulfilling God's covenant to Abraham. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus is the promised seed referenced in the Old Testament, particularly in Galatians 3:16, which states, 'Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.' This verse emphasizes the singular focus on Christ as the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham. Throughout Scripture, God preserves a lineage to bring forth this promised Seed, showcasing His sovereignty in redemptive history. Thus, Jesus is the culmination of God's redemptive plan, affirming His role as the Messiah.

Q: Why is the rejection of Christ important in salvation?

The rejection of Christ highlights humanity's sinful nature and the necessity for faith in His redemptive work. The rejection of Christ is crucial to understanding salvation as it underscores the depth of human sinfulness and the need for divine grace. In the parable of the vineyard, the husbandmen’s rejection of the son typifies humanity's general rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. This response further illustrates our fallen nature, where even those chosen by God can turn against Him. The significance lies in Christ's sacrificial death, as it exemplifies the ultimate act of redemption for His people, transforming rejection into an opportunity for grace. Acceptance of Christ is the key to salvation, ensuring that through faith in Him, we become part of God’s redeemed people, fully justified and reconciled to God.

Q: How should Christians respond to God's calling?

Christians should respond to God's calling with reverence, trust, and active service in His vineyard. In light of the parable of the vineyard, Christians are called to respond with reverence for the Son of God and to fulfill their role as faithful husbandmen in God’s vineyard, which represents the church. This means actively seeking to produce fruit that reflects their faith through obedience, service, and the proclamation of the gospel. Believers are encouraged to trust in Christ's provision and leading rather than relying on their own strength or understanding. The parable serves as a reminder that failure to heed God's calling can lead to spiritual barrenness, while a faithful response brings honor to God and fosters a thriving community of believers dedicated to worship and service.

turn with me to Luke chapter 20. This morning we'll be picking up in verse 9 through 19 and it deals with the parable that our Lord spake immediately to the people who were there with him when the Jews and the leaders of the Jews and the elders of the Jewish people came to him and with a question thinking that they were going to catch our Lord Jesus Christ off guard.

And thinking that by his silence that they would get out of him, that they could then seize upon that and accuse him of being an imposter, a fraud. And then they could arrest him before the people. and take him away, and it would be done justly before the people. And they would think, well, OK, I guess he really was a fraud and whatnot. But the reality is he's not.

He is the Son of God come in the flesh according to the will of the Father to accomplish the Father's will of redemption for his people. And so they come to the Lord with their question, asking him, who gave thee this authority to do the things that you're doing? You see, the Lord had come into Jerusalem triumphantly on the foal of an ass, right, on the colt, a young donkey there.

And the people were praising him, shouting, Hosanna. And he didn't correct them. And the Jewish leaders thought, this is blasphemy. And the people are getting excited about him. And then he comes into the temple with authority. He comes into their temple. And he starts overturning the tables of the money changers and driving out those that sold doves and cattle there in the temple of God. declared to them, he took the scriptures and applied the scriptures to what he was doing, saying, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, and ye have made it a den of thieves. And so he taught in the temple.

And the Jewish leaders, it was contrary to them. It exposed their hypocrisy. It exposed their fraud. And they didn't like it. And so they come to him saying, who gave thee this authority to do these things and to teach here in the temple? Because now he's standing in the temple teaching the people. And they were trying to catch him so they could arrest him. They didn't like it. We gave them license to sell in the temple. And it was falsehood what they were doing.

And Christ embarrassed them. And so they ask him this question. He turns the question around saying, well, I'll ask you a question. The baptism of John, is it of heaven or is it of men? And they couldn't answer. They were dumbfounded. They were silent and shown to be the frauds. And so then, because they couldn't answer, and that's what they said, we don't know. We can't answer that. They knew that they were caught. And Christ just said, well, then neither do I answer the question you asked me. I'm not going to tell you by whose authority I do these things.

And so they were silenced and embarrassed. Following on that directly, immediately our Lord speaks a parable to the people. And this parable, the lesson of this parable, will show that the Jews, the leaders of the Jews, the husband men there in the vineyard, as the Lord uses in this parable, these leaders, these people, all the people, not even just the leaders, but all the people, throughout history they had persecuted and rejected God's prophets. They stiffened their necks, they stiffened their back, they wouldn't hear it, and they would treat them shamefully.

And now the Son has come. The Son of God has come in the flesh, and they're going to do the same thing to him, only they're going to take him outside of the vineyard, and they're going to put him to death, where he was put to death outside of Jerusalem, outside the city there.

And so what we're going to do this morning primarily is just go right down through the parable here. We'll go through it together to see what the Lord is showing us concerning the heart of man, and also that we would see his grace and mercy toward his people. What he's doing is a gracious thing for his people. So verse 9 is where we pick up.

Then, Luke 20 verse 9, then began he to speak to the people this parable. So this is right after he silenced these Jews that were trying to take him in his words. Then began he to speak to the people this parable. A certain man planted a vineyard and led it forth, he leased it out to them, two husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time.

So the certain man who plants this vineyard is a picture, a type of the Lord our God. It is the Godhead that he's speaking of here. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. This is the will and purpose of God in the earth. And he has planted a vineyard and let it out to husbandmen to work that vineyard.

And so what this is speaking of here is this truth that Jehovah God has gathered out a people to himself, a called out people, a chosen people, a people that are loved of God to whom he reveals himself to, to whom he will reveal himself and he's established this people in His covenant of grace to be gracious and merciful to them, to provide for them and care for them because they cannot provide or care for themselves. They've sold themselves into slavery for nothing and gotten nothing out of it. So they are dead by nature in trespasses and sins, and yet it pleased God to choose out for Himself before the foundation of the world, before the falling, a people for Himself. And that fall would do nothing to alter His love and mercy toward them in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so we begin to see this covenant, if you go back into the Old Testament, not right now, but when you look back there, we see how that God revealed himself to Abraham. He called Abraham out from idolatry. He revealed himself to Abraham in a peculiar, special way. And then from Abraham to his son Isaac, and from Isaac to his son Jacob. And then Jacob's children, due to a famine that the Lord providentially brought into the earth, they went down to Egypt.

What we've been looking at in the other message, typically. They went down to Egypt, and there became slaves. They came into bondage. to the Egyptian people. A picture of God's people by nature, with all the other sons and daughters of Adam, cast into bondage, brought into slavery, into sin and death, and ruined by that. And so the Lord has this people, they're in bondage here, but God delivered the people by the hand of Moses.

And revealed himself to the people when he delivered them out of bondage. And so this covenant people, this called out people, this people loved by God, are typified, they're pictured as the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. When you look at the nation of Israel, you're seeing a picture of this vineyard that our Lord is now speaking of in this parable. And the vineyard is the church, the invisible church of God, but to the outside, visibly, you see husbandmen laboring in that church, serving in that church, serving in the vineyard, doing works in the vineyard and laboring and caring for it and doing what they can in order to bring forth fruit of the vineyard unto him whose vineyard it is.

All right, that's the sense here. But understand that that outward, that nation of Israel in the Old Testament, not every individual, not every single individual in that nation is the true Israel of God. As Paul wrote, they are not all Israel which are of Israel. Not every single son of Abraham was a true son of Abraham, was a true child of faith. Many were just there as scaffolding, as it were, just pieces there to help with the care and provision of the church. But they didn't believe. They weren't of faith. They were of the flesh.

And so God, however, with this type, this picture there of natural Israel, God dealt with that nation in a very peculiar way. He gave them the word. He sent them prophets who spoke that word. He revealed himself to them in a very special and peculiar way, in a way that we're coming to in Exodus, that we're getting up to when he starts to deliver them out from their bondage. And so God dealt with them in a very peculiar manner for this purpose, in order to bring forth the promised seed.

And I'm talking about the promise given in Genesis 3.15. which the Lord said to Adam and Eve, declaring that he would bring forth a seed of woman which would crush the head of the serpent, destroying the works that he had done when he deceived Eve and brought our father Adam into bondage, there in that manner, and we all came forth sinners because we were in Adam when he sinned and he became corrupt and defiled and spiritually dead. That's why we come forth the way that we come forth, dead in trespasses and sins. And so it was to preserve that promised seed, which is Christ. Let me read what Paul wrote of this in Galatians 3, verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ."

That's the promised seed spoken of all the way back at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 3.15, the promised seed, Christ.

And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ that covenant of grace, that God will be gracious and reconcile his people and restore all things, giving his people life and forgiveness and to establish them in life and fellowship with our God.

That covenant which was before of God and Christ, the law, because when Moses led the people out, he gave them the law. What's the purpose of the law? The law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul, cannot undo that covenant of grace that was before, that it should make the promise of none effect, the promise of Christ, the promised seed. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law?

It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. So in other words, God was making sure that this rebellious, stiff-necked, hard-hearted people didn't just anger God with all their wicked works and their sin, and didn't just adopt and absorb all the idolatry and the witchcraft and the wickedness of the nations around them so that he would destroy them. No, he gave them the law to preserve, to keep them in check, lest the flesh just break out and do all kinds of things. because he was bringing the seed, the promised seed, through that nation, the Lord Jesus Christ. So it was to preserve them so that they wouldn't be destroyed in God's anger and wrath.

And so that nation of Israel was, in that same chapter of Galatians 3, verse 23, kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, not following it by faith, which should afterwards be revealed, as it is now, in the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God calls his people to faith, to follow him in faith, not by the works of the law, but by faith, believing and loving and serving him as faithful husbandmen in the vineyard, in the true church. Not the outward form of the church, but of the people of God, which are his in grace and mercy.

And so Israel, as a nation, they were laboring in the vineyard, the beloved church of God. They're laboring in that vineyard that God had made. And they did so as tenants and as farmers who were to look after the vineyard by caring for it, by laboring and giving of their monies, by keeping the law, by doing what they were doing. to preserve that seed, for the good of the seed, till the seed should come and faith was made known. And so they were to bring forth fruits unto God, because it was his vineyard. It was his vineyard. Now, we've been seeing this dynamic recently in 2 Samuel. We just saw Mephibosheth and Ziba. And what we saw there was a picture of this. Mephibosheth had the land. It was his land.

But he couldn't work the land, or he didn't work the land. But Ziba, who was a servant of Saul from his household, Ziba had 15 sons, 15 healthy sons, and 20 healthy servants. And they all could work the land, but they needed the land to work. And so David gave Mephibosheth the land of Saul and Jonathan his father. And he put in the hands of Mephibosheth with his sons and servants to work that land.

And Zaiba was a very industrious man, and so he had vineyards and gardens and what crops to grow to sell at the market and sheep and cattle and could make it profitable, and he did. And then they split the proceeds 50-50. They brought forth that fruit unto Mephibosheth.

That's what it is, right? The Lord has a vineyard. It's his vineyard. He's given it to husbandmen. He's leased it out, and they're to bring forth fruit unto the Lord. And so the Lord owns the vineyard of his people. They're the church. And though our Lord spake this parable of the Jewish teachers and elders, that's who he's describing here in this parable proper, yet he speaks this parable to the people. He's speaking it to the people in the hearing of those wicked Jews who had their own purposes, wanted to use the vineyard for their own good and their own ends, their own means, I should say. And so, we brethren, as husbandmen in the vineyard, in the church of God, as husbandmen in that vineyard, we're to hear this parable by faith. All right, not to dismiss and say, well, that was to them.

Oh, we're to hear it. We're, by nature, just as wicked of husbandmen if the Lord leave us to ourselves. We could treat it and do unjustly and wickedly in it. but we're to hear it so that by grace we seek the Lord. Lord, help me to be a faithful husbandman. Help me to care for the church, to serve the church in love and in peace, and to build up and edify the church for the good of your people.

That's the fruit there. And so the Lord our God has a vineyard. The vineyard is the church. And the people in the visible church, what you see looking around, are the husbandmen. Remember, the husbandmen in that who labor in the church, who serve God to bring forth fruit unto the Lord of his vineyard. It's his vineyard.

And so that's the sense here. Now regarding the fruitfulness in the vineyard, our Lord says in verses 10 through 12, and at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard, but the husbandmen beat him and sent him away empty. And so here's Israel as this example, but we don't want to lose sight of what it means to us in our day because we are partakers. When everyone's hearing the Lord, And our encourage in the Lord, we love one another, we serve one another, we pray for one another, we care for one another, we speak gently and kindly and peaceably to one another.

We're benefiting as husbandmen in the vineyard, we're partakers of the fruit. God isn't taking all the fruit away. He's taking of the fruit. He's receiving the praise and the glory. But we're benefiting. We're strengthened and helped by one another and encouraged by one another. And so that's our benefit there, too. And again, he sent another servant, and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. Verse 12, and again he sent a third, and they wounded him also, and cast him out.

And so the servants of the Lord are who? They were the prophets. They were the prophets whom the Lord sent to the people. They would come in there, they're just servants, nothing special in and of themselves, but they're servants of the Most High God, and they would come in to direct the people back to the Word of God. They would get wooed and taken away with the lust of the flesh by the nations around them, with their idolatrous gods, their false gods, and their witchcraft, and their evil practices that they did, and sacrifice, and their children to Molech, and all kinds of wicked things that they did. And the prophets would be sent of God as a servant to say to the people, you're departed from the Lord.

And it's his vineyard. Look to the Lord. Trust the Lord. Serve the Lord again. And in other words, to bring them back to his word. And then fruits would come forth again. They would serve the Lord and love the Lord. And those fruits would just be born there in that vineyard.

From reading the scriptures, we know that the Lord's servants have not been loved and cared for many times throughout history. They were very cruel to the prophets. They wouldn't hear them. They'd accuse them of wickedness. They would find fault in them so that they would beat them, run them off, and say all kinds of horrible things about God's servants. They shamefully treated them and sent them away without any fruit. They went away being beaten and shamed and put down.

Sometimes they lost their life. Sometimes they were put in jail. Why? Well, because that's what the Lord's showing us, the nature and the heart of the husbandman in the visible church there. Now, there was a remnant according to the election of grace. There always is. There's always a people of God. In the vineyard, there's the true church, which is the vineyard, and then there's the visible church there of others.

And we're told in the scriptures that the servants had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. They were put into bonds and imprisonment. We saw that right with Joseph, taken by his own brethren who hated him and sold him into slavery. They imprisoned him. Others were stoned, sawn asunder, right, sawn in half. Others were tempted. Others were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.

And that wasn't just really from the world. That was from the people who professed to be the people of God doing that to them. That was the people who claimed to believe God and to be His husbandmen serving in His vineyard that mistreated the servants whom God sent to just direct them back to the Word, to expose the sin and to say, you're not following the Word of God.

And they hated it. And that's true of all men. To this day, men don't like preaching. They don't wanna be preached to. They don't want to hear you declare the word of God and give God all the glory and them no glory, they get angry about that. They get mad about that. They get pricked in their hearts. And sometimes it shames them and humbles them. And other times it makes them mad. And they fight against it, and they war against it.

Even the apostles were persecuted, both by the Jews and the Gentile world, but even in the churches. We see it in Paul's writings. When he wrote to the Corinthians, we see that they gave him a hard time. even though he labored among them. They gave him very difficult, very difficult time, and I'm sure it really hurt him. It broke his heart to be so hated by the people that he was sent to and used of God to bring the gospel to. And they would have gotten rid of him if they could.

And I just picked out one or two verses just to show that. He said, for though, and there's many, but he said, for though ye have 10,000 instructors of Christ, right, because they were getting taken up by listening to everybody who would speak about Christ. He said, yet have ye not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.

They were being wooed by many other so-called preachers, and Paul was just low, low, low, low on their scale of rating of a good preacher and a good pastor. They thought little of him. They liked the fancy speeches. They liked the smooth talkers. They were listening for something else that Paul just wasn't giving them or saying to them. And they just weren't moved by Paul at all.

And instead, They were going after those that were just eyeing the prize of the vineyard for themselves, for their own riches, for their own means, for their own uses, for their own, what they wanted to do. They wanted to run the vineyard the way they wanted to run the vineyard, and they didn't want God's man in there. They didn't want the servant of God in there. They wanted so they could do it their own way. That's what they wanted to do.

And so, just as it was then, it's still the motivation of men. That's why you have schisms and heresies and divisions and separations all the time, because men are still men, and they want to run it the way they want to run it, and they don't want to hear God or listen to His servant in that sense.

And so, the fruit that the people are to bring forth, it all boils down to reverence for the Son. It all boils down to reverencing the Son of God, bowing to Him, trusting Him who says, I will provide. I'll take care of it. I'll do what needs to be done, and trusting Him to do it, not taking things into our hands to fix things and to make things go a certain way because we ruin it all the time. We mess it up so easily. And that's where problems come from. And then there's no fruit.

But when we bow to Christ and we trust him and we lay our concerns before him and wait upon him, the Lord does wondrously in our midst. And the point is, is that what the Lord is showing us in all of this, because there is good in it, We see the true corrupt nature of man's heart. We see our own hearts. We don't even need to look at others. We just need to look in the mirror at ourselves and see, wow, there's all manner of wickedness in here. There's all manner of doubts. and fears and lyings and heresies and wickedness, Lord, have mercy on me." And when we see what we are in ourselves, then we're humble before the Lord, and we're not worried about what everybody else is doing.

We're trusting the Lord. The Lord saved me, and we're trusting the Lord saved my brethren. And they're praying the same thing. Lord, have mercy on me, and have mercy on him too. Save him. And there's peace, and then there's harmony, and there's love.

And so through this, the Lord strips away the vain thoughts. He strips away the things that we would do. Before we do them, we get humbled, fall on our face, brought low. The Lord saves and provides for His people in such a manner that none of us can lay claim to His glory and to do what He's done, but we see His hand in it, and we're made thankful unto Him. And what do we do? We bring forth that fruit that He's looking for, which is reverence the Son. Reverence the Son.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him. Pray to Him. Wait on Him. Don't get ahead of Him. Believe Him. He's able to do good and right. And it brings us all to see and behold and to rejoice in the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was shed for my sins. to wash me of my sins and to cleanse me and make me acceptable to God who is satisfied against me, because I have no sin. He's put it away. It's gone. He's washed it away by his sinless, holy, perfect, wonderful, precious blood.

And he did that for his people so that we can say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And we can preach this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, that by him the sins of the people are put away. All who believe him stand faultless before the throne of God. Trust him, believe him, follow him. And so it's to, that's the word that the servants preach, to bring forth that, well, to use that which the Lord gives, his word, which then brings forth his power, his glory, the demonstration of his grace and mercy in the hearts of his people.

Now the Jewish nation, which rejected many of the servants of God, would have the Son of God sent to them. The Father, it was now time, it was the appointed time when our Lord came for the Father to send his Son. And that was a great, great honor. Verse 13, Luke 20, 13, then said the Lord of the vineyard, what shall I do? They're beating and ignoring my servants that I send. Well, I will send my beloved son.

It may be that they will reverence him when they see him." This is a parable, and it's using these words just to instruct us. It doesn't mean every single word is exactly the way it is in the physical world, but It conveys the truth of God. God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to bring forth the fruit in his people that isn't there by nature, really. He sends his son and it's a great, great honor.

However, he too would suffer at the hands of those that also hated the servants and rejected the servants and sent them away empty. And so they seized upon the son, verse 14 and the beginning of verse 15. But when the husbandmen saw him, the son, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him."

And that's exactly what was in the heart of the elders and the chief Pharisees and the leaders of the Jews. That was in their heart. That's exactly what they wanted to do to Jesus of Nazareth. was to catch him, to cast him out of Jerusalem and put him to death. They wanted him dead and they wanted him to go to the Romans to be crucified, to be put to a shameful death, an openly shameful death which was reserved for criminals.

And so they refused him. They rejected him. And even though he came with signs and wonders, doing that which clearly only a man could do if God was with him. And that's what he did. And yet they hated him. And in demonstration of their hatred, they were saying, we will not have that man reign over us. He's not going to be the leader. He's not going to have his vineyard and have his fruit. Not going to happen. He's rejected. We don't want anything to do with him, anyone but him. But we're not going to bow to this Jesus whom you sent.

And so in doing that, that act, they filled up the wrath of God, the cup of their wrath, which was against them. And God poured out his wrath upon them and utterly destroyed the nation of Israel, brought them to utter ruin, desolated them in 70 AD, destroyed their temple, destroyed the whole setup and everything about them, and that without remedy. They were just utterly destroyed. They were no longer the visible vineyard of God's people. They're still not. That political nation over there is not the church of God. They're not the vineyard. The vineyard is the church, the invisible church, and we, the Gentiles, are serving in it.

We're laboring in it, caring for it, preaching it and declaring it, trusting that God is calling out his people to Christ, to Christ by the truth of God. Yet in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's where our God triumphed gloriously over his enemies. Even though it was in their heart to put him to death, to murder him in their heart and then to physically do it, yet God triumphed over all his enemies and our enemies in the slaying of his son, in the shedding of his blood, because he went there as a substitute for his people. He died in the place of his people so that all who trust him had their sins washed away because the Father poured out His wrath on Him. He came as the Lamb of God, as the substitute of His people, to bear their sins away forever, to wash us away of our sins.

That we would no longer be trying to labor under the law and labor in these various things to cleanse ourselves, we would be given a spirit to know that we are cleansed and to trust him in that. And so that even though we feel the lusts in our heart and feel the infirmities of this flesh, we believe that he has accomplished my redemption. And we stay in him. We follow him by faith, trusting in him.

And so that was a glorious triumph when the Lord allowed His Son, allowed them to take with their wicked hands, put the Son to death, yet that was exactly according to the will of the Father to redeem His people and to save them forever. And all who believe on Christ are justified for their faith. because God raised Him from the dead. God testified that, yes, you that believe Him shall, like Him, live forever in and with Him. Your sins are put away. You have the eternal inheritance with my Son in glory.

And so we see that this beautiful deliverance by our God triumphing over the evil, wicked heart of man. to save his people, his vineyard, to provide for his vineyard perfectly. So having declared this parable, our Lord asks in verse 15, what therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them, those husbandmen? Verse 16, he shall come and destroy these husbandmen and shall give the vineyard to others. which in this case would be the Gentiles. The Jews would reject it. And though there were Jewish believers that were used to start and plant the church, yet it would go to the Gentiles there. And when they heard it, they said, they gasped. God forbid. May it never be so. That's what they were saying. May it never be so.

But that's exactly what God did. He removed the privileges and the blessings from that nation. which were overseeing the vineyard at that time by destroying them in 70 AD. So they confessed in that. They were confessing, I know exactly who you're talking about. You're talking about me. The Lord was talking about them. And they understood that.

That's why they said, God forbid, may it never be. And so he was calling out, he was exposing the murder that was in their heart against him. He was exposing the murder, giving them a glimpse into their own heart to see exactly that's what they wanted to do to him. And rather than repent in shame, they hardened their hearts. They just said, that's exactly what we're going to do to you.

We're going to get rid of you. They couldn't see it. They wouldn't see it. They would not stop. They would not bow. They went forward with their wicked works. And Luke tells us. And he beheld them. They said, oh, may he never be. And then he just looked right at them. He just looked right at them as if to say, that's exactly how it is. That's exactly what's in your heart. You hate the sun. That's exactly what it is. And he just beheld them there in that uncomfortable silence. Just looking at them, just holding them right there. And they knew what he was saying. And to drive it then home to their hearts, verse 17, he beheld them and said, what is this then?

If this isn't true, then what does this scripture mean that is written, the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner? You say no, but the scriptures contradict. what you're saying. And the scriptures reveal exactly what's in the heart, in your heart. That's what he's saying to them. You're contradicting the scriptures. You're misapplying the scriptures. You're abusing the scriptures. You're not faithfully serving as husbandmen in the vineyard.

That's what he's saying. And so he brought that scripture to bear so that they would know they're rejecting the son. They're going to put the heir to death. They're going to be the ones, the very ones, they are the ones being spoken of in this parable. And so they did that as they were appointed unto death, and it glorified the Lord, it glorified the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And the Lord brings this to bear so that you, nor I, that we don't follow in their footsteps. Don't be careless with the things that you hear. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't be careless when the Lord lays it to your heart that you need him. You and I, by nature, we're sinners. We cannot save ourselves. This is not a joke. It's not a game.

God has a people, and he has provided salvation for that people. In his darling son, Jesus Christ, don't reject him the way the Jews did. follow after him, beg him for mercy and grace, cry to him, Lord, please have mercy on me, save me from my sins. He will, because he does it, and because he purposes to do it. That's what he works in the heart of his people, to bring us out of darkness, out of death, out of sleep, out of slumber, out of lethargy, to see that he is the Savior. He is God, and we need him. We fall before him. He works that in us.

There's not another Savior. There's not another salvation in the world. That's what it means that Christ is the Savior of the world. Not the Savior of every individual, but if any man is saved, he's saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and not another. There is one Savior, one salvation. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And then in our text, verse 18, he adds, whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And what the Lord, what I believe the Lord is saying there is that both of those lead to death.

Some people reject the Christ quietly, right? They just dismiss him in their heart quietly and don't make a big scene about it, but they don't care or believe on him. They'll perish in their sins. Others will actively hate him. They'll be pricked in their heart and stirred up and persecute Christ, persecute his church, and fight against him. He says, they'll be ruined, ground to powder, the way we see Israel. Israel is just void of the truth. They're just empty. They don't have it. All the privileges and benefits of God's people is gone from them. It's gone there.

There's individuals that could be saved, but all are saved by Christ. Everyone that's saved is saved because of and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, our Savior is exalted right now to the right hand of the Father. And he's ruling and reigning and accomplishing his will in the earth, till his enemies be made his footstool. And so sovereign almighty God knows. And he's always right, and his will is always done and accomplished, even as we see it here in verse 19.

And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him, and they feared the people. for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them." They would have taken him right then and there, but they were afraid that if we do, the people who are listening to him, they'll gang up against us and drive us out.

But what this is bringing us to ask is, do I believe Lord, did you shed your blood for me? Lord, is this for me? Have mercy on me. Because his people fall on Christ in a different manner. They fall on him helpless. having no other hope, no other salvation, no other hope or joy but the Lord Jesus Christ. And they fall on Him and they find mercy. They build their hope and their love and their faith upon Christ, who is the foundation stone. That's where the vineyard is. brings forth fruit in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, reverencing the Son, not trusting their own works, not listening to the world, believing the word of God, believing the servant of God whom he sent to preach this word, to exalt Christ that you would see him and see your need of him and that you would be given faith by his spirit and power to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul. I pray he do that for us all here and staying upon him.

A Parable Of God’s Vineyard

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's vineyard in Luke 20?

How do we know Jesus is the promised seed?

Why is the rejection of Christ important in salvation?

How should Christians respond to God's calling?

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A Parable Of God’s Vineyard

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's vineyard in Luke 20?

How do we know Jesus is the promised seed?

Why is the rejection of Christ important in salvation?

How should Christians respond to God's calling?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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