Well, good morning. It's good
to see everybody this morning. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, we come into your
courts this morning with thanksgiving. Thankful that we can even come
before your throne of grace, accepted in the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, each of us here have
so much to be thankful for, but chiefly, preeminently, how we
thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for
a savior who loves sinners, who came to save real, genuine sinners. How we thank you for a Savior
whose sacrifice is effectual to put away all of the sin of
all of His people. And Father, how we thank you
for revealing to us and giving to us the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that we might hear it and worship Him. And Father, I pray this morning
that as your gospel is preached, that you would give us here a
true spirit of heart worship. Father, I pray that you would
give me the spirit of preaching your Holy Spirit and able me
to preach in the power of thy spirit for your glory for the
good of your people. And father, I pray that you give
each one of us here this morning a hearing ear and a believing
heart that we might believe and cling to find our joy and peace
and comfort in Christ and Christ alone. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, we pray for your people, wherever they're meeting together
this morning, how we pray you'd bless your word. It seems to
us this is such a dark, dark day. And Father, we pray you'd
let your redemptive glory of the Lord Jesus Christ shine in
our day. Show us your glory, we pray.
For it's in Christ's name, for his sake we pray and give thanks.
Amen. I have this morning a lesson
of warning and I hope something that will be very instructive
and helpful to us and cause us to truly worship our Lord Jesus
Christ. I covet your prayers as we go
through this. I want to read our text beginning
in Mark chapter 12 verse 1. We'll come back and make a few
comments on it. And he began to speak unto them
by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard
and set a hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine fat,
and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into
a far country. And at the season he sent to
the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen
of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him, and beat
him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another
servant, And at him they cast stones and wounded him in the
head and sent him away shamefully handled. And again, he sent another
and him they killed and many others beating some and killing
some. Having yet therefore one son, his well beloved, he sent
him also last unto them saying, they will reverence my son. And
that's the title of the lesson this morning, reverence the son.
But those husbandmen said among themselves, this is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And
they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.
What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? He will come
and destroy the husbandmen, and give the vineyard unto others.
Have you not read this scripture? The stone which the builders
rejected is become the head of the corner? This was the Lord's doing, and
it's marvelous in our eyes. And they sought to lay hold on
him, but feared the people, for they knew that he had spoken
the parable against them, and they left him and went their
way. Now, clearly, this parable that
the Lord taught, the Pharisees understood it, is a history of
Israel, a general history of the whole nation of Israel in
12 verses. And you know the story of Israel,
how the Lord created the nation Israel. He put a hedge about
it to protect it. He said, I'm a wall of fire about
you to protect you. He protected and preserved that
little nation. And he made a covenant with Abraham. Remember, he came to Abraham
and told him, you count the stars. As the stars are, so shall your
seed be. And Abraham knew what the Lord was promising him, that
the Messiah is going to come through his son Isaac. And God
gave those precious, precious promises of grace to Abraham.
He confirmed them with Isaac and with Jacob. And that little
nation was nothing, just those few descendants of Abraham that
were left, that come through Isaac, just 70 of them. But the
Lord caused them to grow, even in the midst of slavery and people
just trying to wipe them out. God caused that nation to grow
in numbers, caused them to flourish. He sent them the prophets. He
sent them Moses, and Elijah, and Elisha, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah,
Ezekiel. He sent them the prophets. They
came with a message to the children of Israel that a message wasn't
sent to any other nation on earth, thus saith the Lord. He sent
them to tell them what God said. And Israel hated every one of
those prophets. They treated them shamefully.
They would have killed them if they could. Now they loved them
after they were dead. but they hated every one of them
while they were alive. Then God sent them a king. They
chose their king Saul and that was a disaster, but God sent
them King David, a king who was a man after God's own heart.
God sent them a king. And Israel treated David shamefully
too, just like we read about in this parable. And that story
is told over and over and over again with all the prophets.
And then in the fullness of time, God fulfilled his promise. And
he sent his son. He sent his son in the flesh
to Israel. And it's the same story repeated
over and over again. What happened to all those other
prophets happened to our Savior and worse. He came into his own,
his own received him not. I mean, you talk about being
treated shamefully. I mean, they hated him from the
very beginning. They were plotting to kill him
from the very beginning. In his first public message,
they took him, they wanted to throw him off the cliff. You
know, they hated him so much. They sought everything, every
way they could think of to discredit him and trap him. They slandered
him. And finally, the father put his
son in their hands. to fulfill his purpose now. They
did what they wanted to do, but they fulfilled God's purpose.
But now that doesn't relieve them of the responsibility, does
it? The father put his son into the hands of these men, and they
tortured him. They tortured him. They sent
him to the Roman soldiers. They tortured him. They put him
through a mock trial themselves. They put him through this charade
with Pilate. They beat him, and the scourging
that they put people through would oftentimes kill people.
Their internal organs would fall out their back. They scourged
him, and then they took him to crucify him. They drove nails
through his hands and his feet, hung him to a hunk of wood, dropped
it in a hole, and mocked him while he died. They wanted to crucify him so
badly. I mean, Pilate thought maybe
it would be the best thing to do, let this man go, not cause
this big uproar. They wanted to crucify him so
badly. They said if there's any negative
fallout for this, for us killing him, let his blood be on us and on
our children. And one of the most frightening
things I can think of is God to give us what we want. He gave
them what they wanted. And his blood is on their head
to this day, isn't it? Their problem was they didn't
reference God's son. They didn't reference him. They
rejected him. Look back at Isaiah chapter 28.
This is a passage that our Lord quotes here. They rejected the
chief cornerstone. They rejected the only place
of salvation, the only place of refuge from the overflowing
scourge of God's wrath against sin. He came to them and they
rejected him. Isaiah 28, verse 14. Wherefore, hear the word of the
Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people, which is in Jerusalem.
And that's the very man that the Lord was talking to, the
scribes and the Pharisees. Because you have said we've made
a covenant with death, and with hell are we in agreement, when
the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come
unto us, for we've made lies our refuge, and under falsehood
have we hid ourselves. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a dried
stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. He that believeth on this one,
he shall not make haste. He'll not be found guilty. He's
got nothing to worry about. He's hiding in Christ. Judgment
also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet.
And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies. And the water
shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death
shall be disannulled. And your agreement with hell
shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, then you should be trodden down by it.
You'll be trodden down by it because you rejected the precious
cornerstone, because you rejected the stone, the foundation that
salvation is built upon, the stone that God sent. And if you
look at Acts chapter four, Peter tells us that this one way of
salvation, this one rock, this rock that God sent, that rock
is Christ. Acts chapter four, verse 10. Be it known unto you all, and
to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised up from the dead,
even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is
the stone. The stone is not a thing, Peter's
telling, this stone is a person. This is the stone, which was
set at nought of you builders, which has become the head of
the corner, Neither is there salvation in any other. There's
one Savior, there's one way of salvation, there's one refuge.
Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. And these men who the Lord was
talking to, who were supposed to be the builders, they're supposed
to be building people up in faith, they're supposed to be building
people up in the truth, These men who spend their time studying
the scriptures, the scribes are constantly transcribing it, rewriting
it, so there's extra copies of it, you know, the chief priests
and pharisees that spend all their time studying this word.
These are the very ones who refused to reverence the Savior. These
are the ones that got the people to say his blood be on us and
on our children. And because of that, The Lord
took his gospel and his presence away from the Jews and he sent
it to the Gentiles. That's what he says in our text
in verse nine. Now what shall therefore the
Lord of the vineyard do? What do you reckon after all
they've treated his servants and they treated his son, what
do you think the Lord's going to do to these husbandmen who
are supposed to be running the vineyard? He'll come and destroy
the husbandman and will give the vineyard unto others. And
if you look at Romans chapter 11, here's one of the fulfillments
of this, Romans chapter 11, that the Lord took his gospel, his
presence, his word, his prophets, his preachers away from the Jews
and sent them to the Gentiles. Romans 11 verse seven. What then? Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded. According as it is written, God
hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should
not see and ears that they should not hear unto this day. And David
saith, let their table be made a snare. Let all these things,
these ceremonies, let them be made a snare. Their Passover
table, all these things, let them be made a snare and a trap
and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them. Let their eyes be
darkened that they may not see and bow down their back all way.
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Have they
fallen away forever? Paul says, God forbid. But rather
through their fall, salvation has come unto the Gentiles. God
took that message of salvation away from the Jews and he sent
it to the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the
fall of them be the riches of the world, and that's when the
Lord took his gospel away from the Jews, it's the riches of
the world, isn't it? When he sent it to the Gentiles.
And the diminishing of them, the riches of the Gentiles, how
much more their fullness. You know clearly what the apostle's
saying there is the Lord took his gospel away from the Jews,
sent it to the Gentiles, And he gave the nation Israel judicial
blindness so that they cannot see. To this day, when the law's
read, when the gospel's preached, when Christ is preached, the
nation as a whole is blinded so that they cannot see. At first,
they would not see. They refused to see. They refused
to reverence the Son. Now God's made it so they cannot
see. Now that's not to say God wouldn't save individual Jews
out of that nation. Of course he would. He's got
a people from every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation.
But as a nation, they're blinded to this day, aren't they? That's
what the apostle Paul told us. All right. As short as I could
do it, that's the history of Israel in a nutshell. And that's
what the Lord is teaching here. And the chief priests, the Pharisees,
they knew exactly what he was saying. They knew he was talking
about them. But instead of them begging for mercy, they sought
all the more to lay hands on him and kill him. And the Lord
took the gospel. He took his word away from them. Now that's a history lesson.
That's what the Lord was telling the nation Israel what happened
to them. But that's not the gospel. That's
not the gospel. But there is a lot for us to
learn here. It's a very serious warning to
us. You know, Paul said in Romans 15 verse four, for whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning.
This parable, I know who the Lord was speaking to and it applied
to them, but it's also written for our learning, isn't it? I
think that it's fair to compare Israel of old to the gospel being
in Ashland all these years. You think about the gospel of
God's free and sovereign grace has been preached in this town
for over 70 years. That's a long time. The Lord
sent his gospel to this town. He digged a hedge about us, a
hedged us about. He's preserved his gospel being
preached here. He's protected it. And hadn't
he blessed it? I mean, he's blessed it to his
glory, that we can see his glory. He's blessed it to his people.
I mean, how many people has the Lord saved? How many people is
the Lord still blessing, blessing their hearts by the preaching
of the gospel? His riches of grace to us are
so much more than we could ever number. Now, here's my question
to you and me. What are we gonna do with it? What
are we going to do with it? I'm sure that no one here would
say, you know, I reject Christ. I reject him. I hate him. If,
you know, I would, I want to see his name snuffed out just
as much as those Pharisees did. Nobody here would say that. Nobody
here would say, you know, I hate the gospel. I want to go back
to the law and the ceremonies and, and have that bondage put
back on me. I want to have my own righteousness.
I don't want to have the righteousness of Christ. Nobody here would
say that. But let me ask you this. Just
because we've had the gospel here so long, do we take it for
granted? Do we treat the worship service,
do we treat the preaching of the gospel as just a common,
ordinary thing? Because it is ordinary. I mean, ordinarily, we have the
gospel preached to us every week. Does that make us take it for
granted? Does it? Is this what Brother
Henry used to say, is this a poor man's country club to you? Just
a social gathering? Or do I really believe Christ? Think of all the reasons that
you come to the worship service. Just make a list, one, two, three
in your head. Was the first one Christ? Do I really believe, do I need
Him? Do I need to hear Him? Because
I need to feed on Him. I need to hear of Him. I need
to be comforted and assured again. Yes, Christ came to save sinners. I hear that and then I get out
in the world and I have to live with my wretched self and I just
think, oh my goodness, if God's like me, I'd never save me. I need to come back and hear,
oh no, God's not like me. He's not like me. He saves sinners.
He saves sinners. He forgives sin. Is that just
common and ordinary to me? Because I hear it all the time?
Or do I need Him? You know, to hear the gospel
and to not believe on Christ, to not need Him, to not find
rest in Him, do you know that's just as wicked as what the Jews
of old did? It's just as wicked. And one
of my great, great fears is that since we've had the gospel here
so long, since the Lord is blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon
us, one of my great, great fears is we take it for granted and
treat it as just a common, ordinary thing. We take it and we don't
reverence the son. If we do that, Could you blame
the Lord for taking it away from us and moving it somewhere else? I mean, this is a great, great,
great fear of mine for me and you both. Look at Hebrews chapter
two. Here's an example of just by
treating these things that we hear preached casually, it's
not reverencing the son. Hebrews chapter two. Therefore, we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we've heard. Now you think
of the gospel that you've heard. You think of the glorious truths
of the gospel. We do our best to hold up Christ
and exalt him and the glory of his person, the glory of his
character, his love and compassion for his sinful people, his sacrifice,
his blood that cleanses us from all sin. I mean, you just go
on and on and on and on. how His saints are secure, even
in our sinful state, they're secure, not because of who we
are and what we do, but because who He is. I mean, the glorious,
glorious truths of the gospel, we've heard them. Now you beware,
lest at any time we would let those things slip, that we let
them slip because there's something else more important to us. For
if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression
and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by
them that heard him. Not reverencing the Son is just
neglecting. It's not openly saying, I hate
this and I'm not gonna listen to this and I'm not gonna receive
this, I'm not gonna believe this, that's foolishness. is to say,
yeah, I believe it, but it's neglecting it. It's neglecting
it. You know, we've heard the person
of Christ preached here. So much, so much better in our
day. Those Jews of old, all they had
was the pictures. They had types, they had pictures,
they had the law. We have preached to us the finished
work of salvation. And I like saying it better this
way. We have Christ preached to us who finished the work.
I'm not just trusting in a finished work, are you? I'm trusting the
person who finished the work. We've had his person preach to
us. We've had his love for sinners. We've heard of the success of
his sacrifice. Whoever it is that Christ died
for, whoever it is that the Father gave him to save, I know this
beyond a shadow of a doubt, They're redeemed. Christ's sacrifice
redeemed them and washed them from all of their sin. That's
his redemptive glory. His glory that he did something
we could never do for ourselves, something we would never do for
the sinful people he did it for. I mean, you just, we've heard
of him. And the way we reverence the son is by believing on him. We reverence the son by hanging
on to this gospel. for all we're worth. We reverence
the Son by thinking on these things, but not by hearing a
preach Sunday morning and say, well, that's good. And going
home and not thinking about it again till Wednesday night and
coming here Wednesday night, well, that's good. And they're
not thinking about it again till Sunday morning. Now think on
these things. Think on them. Search the scriptures
to see if they be so. Continue in the faith. Beg God
that he enable you to continue in the faith. If we don't do
these things, would we be surprised that our punishment would be
worse than the Jews who rejected Christ? Because we've sinned
against greater light? Wouldn't be surprised, would
you? It's my constant prayer that God keep us from that. Look
over a few pages of Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews 10 verse 26. For if we sin willfully, and
that's not just saying commit any sin, it's not the violation
of just any of God's commandments, it's saying I believe the gospel. It's giving a public confession,
a mental agreement that I believe the gospel, and then leaving
it. Then saying I no longer believe
that, I believe something else. That's the sinning willfully
that the writer's talking about here. If we sin willfully and
we depart from the gospel, after that we've received the knowledge
of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. If
I reject Christ, there's not another sacrifice that's gonna
put my sin away, is there? But all that remains is a certain
fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall
devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses, Of how much sore punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith
he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the
Spirit of grace. For we know him that has said,
vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the
Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It's a fearful
thing. to fall into the hands of the
living God. And we just looked at how the
Lord judged the Jews who didn't reverence his son. He took his
gospel away from him. He took his presence away from
them. He gave that nation as a whole judicial blindness so
that they cannot see. And all they had were the law,
the Old Testament types and ceremonies and shadows. But today we have
the completed word of God, don't we? We have the word of God that
tells us how Christ came and fulfilled all the law, how he
fulfilled all those types and shadows and pictures, that it
was all talking about him. It wasn't talking about me or
my own righteousness by keeping the law. He was pointing to Christ
my righteousness, who did something I couldn't do. He obeyed the
law for me. It speaks of redemption in Christ
by grace, not by words. but by grace, grace and grace
alone. We've heard the gospel of both
mercy and truth. You know, all the law talked
about was truth, punishment for breaking the law. The law never
talked about mercy, did it? But we've had Christ preach to
us mercy and truth. How by the obedience of Christ
and the sacrifice of Christ, he made it right for the father
to show mercy to sinners like you and me. We've heard how because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of his person, because of what
he accomplished, God can be just and still justify the ungodly
like you and me. That is such a mystery. It's such a glorious, glorious
thing. I just love to think about that. How because of the sacrifice
of Christ, God is just to justify a sinner like me. What an amazing
story of grace and truth. And hearing that, what Christ
accomplished for his sinful people, doesn't that melt your heart?
Isn't that precious to you? Have you ever heard anything
more precious than that? But again, I go back to my question,
what do you reckon will happen to us if we start taking that
blessing for granted? That it's just a common thing,
not Just by treating it as, eh, yeah, I mean, that's true, and
I've heard that before. Frank's just repeating himself
again. That's not reverencing the Son. It's not reverencing
the Son if I'm preaching the gospel. If I'm preaching Christ,
that's not reverencing the Son. Paul said it's counting that
as an unholy thing. And that phrase, unholy thing,
you know what that means? It means something that's common
to all. It's saying, well, Christ died
for everybody. He died for every son of Adam
to give every son of Adam a chance. You know, God loves everybody.
He loves everybody the same. He sent his son to die for everybody
to give them a chance to be saved. Now, you know, if you don't accept
it, you don't receive it, well, you know, you're gonna go to
hell. Well, that makes salvation dependent on you. That makes
the blood of Christ a common thing, something that's offered
to all instead of shed. and put on the altar before his
father. You know, anyone who believes such a thing, that Christ
would die for every son of Adam, and some of them, whoever he
died for, are gonna go to hell anyway, those people don't know
Christ. That's all there is to it. They
don't know Christ. And if they die believing such
a thing, I promise you this, they're gonna be damned. They
will be. And I don't think anybody here
would ever say that out loud, that, oh, Christ died for everybody. His blood is common. But this
verse tells us that we cannot believe that Christ died for
everybody. I mean, yeah, Christ died for
his elect. We can believe that, but still
not reverence the Son. That phrase trodden underfoot
means to treat with insulting neglect. Insulting neglect. To neglect the gospel of God's
Son. To neglect The preaching of it,
that's not reverencing the sun and it's just lack of respect
due to over familiarity. That's what it is. Now, that's how I cannot reference
the sun. And I point that out because
this is my greatest, one of my greatest, I got a lot of fears.
This is one of my great, great ones. That we would treat this
as something that's just common. It's the same old, same old.
But how can I reverence the Son? How can I reverence the Son?
You know, I don't ever want to be guilty of honoring Him with
my mouth, with my heart being far from Him. I don't want that. I know you don't either. Let
me give you a few ways in closing we reverence the Son. It's by
believing on Christ. I mean, one of the greatest ways
to reverence Him is believing. Believe He is who He said He
is, that He's the Savior of sinners. Believe Him when He says, come
unto me. If you're weary, come unto me,
I'll give you rest. Believing, believing. Quit your works of
the law and rest in Christ. Come to Him. We worship, we reverence the
Son by being here to worship Him. And when we're here, truly
worshiping Him. Not just a social event, but
truly worshiping Him. and seeking to find real, genuine
joy of heart in the preaching of Christ. We reverence the Son
by bringing an offering, coming to worship. We reverence the
Son by seeking to grow in grace. We reverence the Son by seeking
to bear some of the fruit of the Spirit. You know, in the
Lord's parable, He sent men to gather the fruits of His vineyard,
It's reasonable that the Lord expect fruit from his vineyard,
wouldn't you say? Well, we can seek to bear the
fruit of the Spirit. We could at least try to live
what we say we believe by being forgiving, by being kind, by
being faithful, by seeking to follow the Lord. And here's the
last thing, and all the things I mentioned before this about
reverencing the Son is all dependent upon this. We reverence the Son
by praying. Now I mean true praying. Praying to praise Him, praying
to honor Him, and praying to ask the Lord for what we need. I can't believe on Christ unless
He gives me faith. I can't worship from the heart
unless He enables me to do it. I can't grow in grace, I can't
bear the fruit of the Spirit unless He enables me to do it.
We honor the Son by praying, and I'm not able, but Lord, you
are. Now, would you be merciful and
gracious to me? That's reverencing the son. And
if Lord will enable us as a congregation to live like that, I believe
he'll continue to bless us, don't you? I hope he will. All right,
Lord bless you.