Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 21. Continue
our study and Lord willing, finish up the chapter here. Matthew
21 this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our father. We bow before you
this morning seeking a blessing from your storehouses of grace.
Father, we beg of you that you would Give us a word from Thee
this morning that You would open Your Word to us and that You
would be our teacher and that You would apply Your Word to
our hearts that we might see and believe the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rest in Him. Father, as we attempt to worship
You this morning, that You might enable us to glorify and magnify
the Savior, to lift up His matchless name and to put no confidence,
no trust in the flesh, to not look to it in any way, but to
be able to look to and cling to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
bless us, we pray. Bless your people everywhere
who are meeting together this morning to worship you. Father,
cause your word to run well. In this dark, dark day, Father,
we pray that you'd send out the light of the gospel to your people.
Father, for those who are hurting and who are sick, Father, we
pray for them. We pray that you'd undertake
on behalf of your people to heal and to comfort. We pray a special
blessing for the Thompson family at this time, Father, that you'd
comfort their hearts as only you can. Father, with all these
things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, In our text this morning,
we're gonna look at a parable that the Lord uses to illustrate
the difference between the saved, those who have eternal life,
and those who will be condemned, those who will be crushed by
the justice of God. Now there is a vast, vast difference
between the two. Pretty important, isn't it? Either
have eternal life or to be crushed by the justice of God, and I'd
like to know which of the two camps I'm in. I'd like for you
to know that too. And in this parable and what
our Lord says afterward, he gives us three differences between
the saved and the condemned, the damned. And number one is
this, the condemned trust the blessings, the saved trust the
blessor, the person. Look here beginning in verse
33. Here another parable. There was a certain householder
which planted a vineyard and hedged it round about, and digged
a winepress in it, and built a tower, and lent it out to husbandmen,
and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit
drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they
might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants,
and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he
sent other servants, more than the first, and they did unto
them likewise. But last of all, he sent unto
them his son, saying they'll reference my son. But when the
husbandman 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. When the Lord, therefore,
the vineyard cometh, what will he do under those husbandmen?
They say unto him, he will miserably destroy those wicked men and
will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen. was to render
him the fruits in their seasons. And the meaning of this parable
is obvious to everybody. And the Pharisees understood
the meaning of this parable. Look down at verse 45. And when
the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they
perceived that he spake of them. But when they sought to lay hands
on him, they feared the multitude because they took him for a prophet.
Now, like I say, the meaning of this parable is obvious. And
this is exactly what happened to the Jewish nation. The Lord
chose of all the nations on earth, of all the people on earth, he
chose Israel to be his people, to be a picture of his spiritual
people. And the Lord blessed them. The
Lord sent his prophets to Israel. He sent his prophets to come
to Israel and tell them, thus sayeth the Lord. Not one other
nation on earth had that message preached to them. Not one. The prophets came to Israel and
said, thus sayeth the Lord. Here's God's mercy. Here's God's
grace. Here's the glory of our God. And Israel beat them and
killed them. They killed those prophets. Almost
every prophet that I can think of in the Old Testament, including
John the Baptist, was hated by the Jews at some point or another.
They almost always refused to hear them. They probably all
felt like I'm the only one, how come nobody's listening? Israel
hated the prophets so much, they even killed some of them. Well,
finally, the Lord sent them prophet after prophet after prophet after
prophet. Finally, the Lord himself, God
sent his son into the world and he came in the flesh as a Jew. He came to that Jewish nation,
the nation that God had chosen to be his nation. He came into
his own. and his owner received him not.
They wouldn't receive the prophets, they wouldn't listen to the prophets,
and they wouldn't receive the son or hear the son either. Israel
rejected and hated the son of God even more than they did the
prophets. I mean, they spent a long time trying to kill this
man. I mean, here they were just, you know, the Pharisees, the
chief priests, they wanted to lay hands on him, they wanted
to just take him and wring his neck and kill him right then. They
were so angry. And they didn't because they thought, well, you
know, the people think he's a prophet, you know. It's a political decision,
you see that? It's not what's right or wrong.
I mean, if this man was only a man claiming to be the son
of God, he should have been put to death. He should have been
stoned. But the truth had nothing to do with it. It's just a political
decision. Well, the people won't like us
if we do this. They spent a long time wanting
to get rid of this man, Jesus of Nazareth, and they finally
did it. They killed him in the most painful, most humiliating
way possible. And they killed him. They put
him to death. And when they did, this is what they said. If this
is a mistake, if we're not doing God's will here, let his blood
be on our heads and on our children. If there's any fallout for this,
let it fall on us and our children. If there's a fallout for this,
let the curse come on us and our children, and that's exactly
what happened. His blood has been on their heads,
the Jewish nation, ever since. Just a few years after our Lord's
death, Caesar sent his armies in and destroyed Jerusalem, scattered
the people, and until what, the late 40s, early 50s, they never
came back. They never came and just scattered.
And there's no Jewish religion in that sense today. There's
no more sacrifices, there's no more priesthood. It's all been
destroyed. The Lord took his preachers.
He had 12 apostles. He took those apostles almost
exclusively away from the Jews. He took his word away from the
Jews and he left them in judicial blindness. That's a great big
word. Let me tell you what judicial
blindness means. It means they refuse to see the
Savior. I mean, it's just obvious. They
refuse to see. They would not see. They did
not want to see, and now they can't. They said, let his blood
be on us and our children. It is. To this day, they can't
see him. They can't see him. They didn't
want the Lord, and the Lord let them have their way, and they
can't have him to this day. I'm sure that the Lord has saved
Jewish people, you know, over the course of times, but as far
as a nation goes, they're under judicial blindness. They trusted
in having the law and the ceremonies. Now those are blessings, weren't
they? Isn't that God's blessing that nation? He gave them the
law and the ceremonies. It's the only way God could be
worshiped. Only way. No other nation had it. So that's
a blessing, isn't it? But they hung on to the blessing
instead of the blessor. See the difference? The law and
the ceremonies pointed to Christ, but they rejected Christ and
hung on to the blessing. So the Lord took the gospel away
from the Jews and sent it to the Gentiles. That's why you
and I have the gospel today. That was the Lord's will. And
I want to warn us, be careful. Be careful. The Jews, these chief
priests and the Pharisees, They weren't hanging on to something
evil, were they? I mean, this is a good thing.
The law and the ceremonies, the law of God's good and holy and
just and right. The ceremonies are beautiful
pictures of Christ. It's not that they're bad. It's
not that they're evil, but all they are is pictures. And they
laid on to something that grant you is good. It's a blessing,
but they missed the savior in doing it. I hope that's clear. They hung on to something that's
good, but they missed the Savior. They missed salvation. They missed
eternal life because of it. Be careful what you're trusting
in. Be careful what you're hanging your soul upon. Now, you've heard
it said many times that the greatest blessing that the Lord can give
a geographical area is for God to send one of his preachers
to that area. That's a true statement. greatest
blessing God could send to an area. But now listen, the blessing
is not the preacher. I mean, don't think, oh, the
blessing is the preacher that God sends. The blessing is the
message that God's servant preaches. The Lord cannot give a greater
blessing to an area than to give them the message of the gospel.
Because it's pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. When God sends his gospel to
an area, he's doing it because he intends to save somebody.
That's the way God forgives the sin of his people. That's the
way that he gives faith in Christ. That's the way he makes his people
righteous and holy. It's through the preaching of
the gospel, giving them the faith to believe it. And the Lord intends
to save somebody. That's a blessing, isn't it?
That's a blessing. And I want this lesson here,
what the Lord's teaching us in this parable, to be applied to
you and me. We're not talking about Jews
that lived 2,000 years ago or even the Jewish nation today.
I want this applied to you and me. The Lord has blessed this
tri-state area and this people and this congregation with the
gospel for two or three generations now. You let that sink in. How blessed
have we been? I mean, since the 1950s, the
gospel has been preached in Ashland, Kentucky. You just can't even
say how blessed we are. that the Lord has kept his gospel
here all these years? That doesn't happen very often.
You know, we may be a bunch of hillbillies living in a disadvantaged
area, but the Lord's kept his gospel here. And that makes this
a blessed area. The Lord's continuing to call
out his people through the preaching of the gospel. The Lord's continuing
to feed and edify and strengthen his people, comfort the hearts
of his people through the preaching of the gospel. What a blessing.
You just cannot deny God's given us this great blessing. It's
undeniable. Well, here's my question. What
are we going to do with it? What are we going to do with
the gospel of Christ? Has the Lord sent us so many
good preachers, now we're going to start hating them? Now we're
going to start ranking them, saying, well, I'm of Paul, I'm
of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. You know, we're going to love
some and hate some, even though they preach the same message.
Are we gonna let this blessing God's given us? We've had the
gospel here all these years. He hasn't taken it away. Are
we gonna let receiving that gift make us proud and arrogant and
strut around like a bunch of roosters saying, well, we got
this because we deserve it. Lord's kept the gospel here because
we've been so faithful. Are we to be succumbed so proud
of having the gospel proud of having true doctrine. And we
have. God's given us the gospel. We
have true doctrine, undeniable. But we're going to start trusting
and having the doctrine, having the gospel, instead of hanging
on to the person, the message, the person that the gospel declares.
Which are we going to do? Which are we going to do? It
can happen that we hang on to the blessing, and miss the Savior. See what I'm saying? If that's
what happened to the Jews, don't think it can't happen to you
and me, it can. They were proud of having the law, they were
proud of having the ceremonies, they were proud and they trusted
in that, that God had given that to the Jews, so they trusted
in the flesh, they trusted being a Jew instead of trusting in
Christ, instead of trusting in the mercy of God. And my question
to you and me is, are we gonna cling to the right message? Are
we going to cling to the right form of doctrine, the right form
of religion, the right form of worship? Are we going to cling
to what we've grown accustomed to that's just our habit? Or
are we going to cling to Christ? Are we going to cling to the
Savior and trust Him and love Him? Now, which is it? We're
going to do one of the two. Well, I guess the third option
is we just reject the gospel completely. So I guess it's one
of three, but it ends up being two results, doesn't it? It ends
up being two results. Those who are condemned are going
to hang on to the blessings. They're going to hang on to the
form of religion. They're going to hang on to the habit of religion. They're going to just become
deluded into thinking, well, because I'm faithful to attending
services in a building we call church building, that God's going
to bless me. The condemned are going to hang
on to the blessings. And the saved are going to hang
on to the person of Christ from whom all those blessings flow.
because they're all in him. All right, here's the second
thing. The condemned are damned by their own doing, and the saved
are saved by the Lord's doing. I've made this statement before,
and I've gotten in trouble from it from some folks, but it's
true nevertheless. If I go to hell, it's my fault.
It's not God's fault. It's not God's fault for not
choosing me. It's not God's fault for not sending his son to die
for me. If I go to hell, it's my fault for my sin and my rebellion. It's all my doing. And if I awake
in glory in the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's all
God's doing. That's true. Look here at verse 42. Jesus
saith unto them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone
which the builders rejected? The same has become the head
of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It's marvelous. in our
eyes. Now the Pharisees and the Jews,
they rejected Christ, came into his own, his own received him
not. They would not have him. They said, I'll not have this
man to reign over me. Well, then it's not God's fault.
They're not saved. Is it? It's not God's fault.
They don't have Christ. It's not God's fault. They rejected
the savior. God sent it to him, plainly revealed
to me. They rejected. It's not God's
fault. They wanted their own works and their works are just
Religious works, religious stuff that's built on the sand of human
flesh. And those works are built on
sand. Do you know why? They rejected
the rock. God sent them the rock. God sent
them the foundation. They rejected the foundation.
They insisted on their works built on sand. Well, it's not
surprising that when the storm comes, whatever's built on sand
falls flat, is it? You know the song our children
sang, the house on sand went splat. It's not surprising. It's built on sand. It's built
by human works, not God's works. Look at Isaiah chapter 28. Anything that man builds by his
works, his hands, his idea, his will, will not stand. It's just
not surprising when it falls to him. Look here at Isaiah 28
verse 14 wherefore hear the word of the Lord. He's scornful men
that rule this people, which is in Jerusalem because, and
you just think about this was written 700 years before the
Lord had this conversation in Matthew 21. See if this doesn't
sound exact. I mean, this is the word of God
here that we're here. The, the word of the Lord, he's
scornful men, which rule this people, which is in Jerusalem.
Because you've said we've made a covenant with death and with
hell are we at agreement when the overflowing scourge will
pass through, it should not come unto us. For we've made lies
our refuge and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. And look
down verse 17. Judgment also will I lay to the
lie 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 should be disannulled.
And your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, you shall be trodden down by it.
Now this is the condemned. Now they're very religious. I
mean, they have works, they built a refuge. They're very religious.
It appears impressive and righteous, religious to men. And their hope
of eternal life is what they've done, that they've done enough
good works, that they've checked enough good religious boxes that
they've got a refuge from God's wrath. They hope to escape God's
wrath just because they've been good enough, just because they've
been religiously straight enough. That's their refuge from the
wrath of God. And God calls that refuge a refuge
of lies. It's a refuge of lies because
men's works are lies. You know, to say that a man's
works can be good enough to please God, that's a lie. It's a refuge
of lies. And those people, not surprisingly,
will be condemned because they rejected the only foundation.
God has one foundation. He has one. There has to be a
foundation. There has to be a refuge and
God's provided one. Only one. And they rejected it.
Well, then it's not surprised. Their refuge be swept away and
they'd be condemned. Hold your place there. Don't
leave there yet. You know, people in works religion, You know,
they're trying to get what doesn't belong to them. They want something
good. They know they need it, but they're
going all about it the wrong way. The husbandman in our Lord's
parable, they wanted the inheritance, didn't they? They wanted it by their own works,
so they killed the son. See, the inheritance rightly
belongs to the son, doesn't it? And they killed him trying to
take what doesn't belong to him. That's what works religion is.
They're trying to steal God's glory. They're trying to take
what doesn't belong to them. The glory of establishing righteousness,
the glory of earning and obtaining eternal life is not ours. It's
Christ's and to try to take it is stealing. It's robbing him
of his glory. And these religious Jews hated
the Lord so much because they hated his message. His message
was salvation by grace, not by the works of the law. Yeah, God
gave you the law of Moses. The Lord told him that, but he
said, didn't give it so you could keep it. He gave it so you could
see you can't keep it. So you need somebody else to
come. You need somebody else to keep it for you. Salvation
is by faith in Christ, not your religious activity. And they
wanted their own glory. They wanted that so much. They
wanted to be saved by their own work so much. They hated the
Lord for preaching another message and they killed him for it. They
wanted the inheritance. They wanted what didn't belong
to them by dishonest means, by trying to lie to God and lie
to me and say, my works are good enough. It's just dishonest. Sinners can only be saved by
the Lord Jesus Christ. A sinner like you and me can
have the inheritance. rightly, injustly, dishonestly,
by being a joint heir with Christ, by being a joint heir. And they
want to be saved their own way, and they're going to be condemned
for it. They're going to be condemned for not believing on the Son,
wanting to have their own glory. And the saved say this, salvations
of the Lord. All the glory belongs to Him.
I love it that way. I want it that way. They say,
This is the Lord's doing everything about salvation, everything about
all the spiritual blessings that God has for his people, everything
about accomplishing redemption and righteousness and eternal
life for God's people. That's all the Lord's doing from
his choosing of people in eternity past to everything that happens
in time to him, glorifying them in eternity future. That's all
the Lord's doing. And it's marvelous in our eyes.
It's so marvelous. Everything God's people see about
God is marvelous. His love for his people is marvelous. That almighty God could love
sinners. I mean, you and I are sinners
and we can't love one another. The holy God loves sinners. It's
marvelous. God's grace is marvelous. It
reaches to the deepest pit. The slimiest, deepest pit, His
grace reaches, pulls God's people out of that miry clay. God's
mercy is marvelous. God's mercy to His people makes
the guilty not guilty. It's marvelous. God's wisdom. God has provided
a salvation that's so wise, He's both just and justified. God's
just when he shows mercy to sinners. God's just when he forgives the
sin of his people because he punished their sin in the person
of their substitute. That's so marvelous. It's so
marvelous. It's so wonderful. It passes
all human understanding. And that's why the Pharisees
rejected. I'm just confident they were brilliant men. Educated,
the most educated people you could be in that day. They were
educated, intelligent, And they couldn't see because it's so
marvelous. Salvation in Christ is so marvelous. It passes all human understanding
and the saved like it that way. I don't have to understand. It
is just, it's marvelous to me. It's beyond human comprehension
to me that God would save me. It's just beyond my comprehension
that God would choose me. that God would love me, that
His Son would come to suffer and die for my sin, that God
would forgive my sin because He punished Christ, His own Son.
He killed His only begotten Son in my place so He could forgive
my sin. David says such knowledge is
too wonderful for me. I can't attain unto it. I just...
But by God's grace, I believe it. And this is what I rejoice
in. Salvation. is all of the Lord's
doing. And that takes all the pressure
off, doesn't it? It's all the Lord's doing. And
that lets us rest in Christ. And I love it. I love it that
way. I'm saved from God's wrath because Christ is my hiding place. Now, verse 16, Isaiah 28. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay, see this is the Lord's doing. I lay in
Zion for a foundation. A stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation. And he that believeth shall not
make haste. He that believeth in Christ is
safe, safe from God's wrath and shall not make haste. He got
nothing to run from. His refuge took it all for him.
All right, here's the third thing. The Lord Jesus Christ will fall
on the condemned. He will fall on the condemned.
He's the judge and he'll crush them. The saved fall on the mercy
of Christ and they're saved. Verse 44 in our text. And whosoever
shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever
it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Now salvation
and condemnation, eternal life and damnation, all has to do
with your relationship with Christ. Scripture calls Christ the stone. We just read that in Isaiah.
He's the tried stone, the precious cornerstone. Our eternal destiny
completely, wholly depends on our relationship with this stone,
with this Savior. To the condemned, Christ is the
stone of stumbling. They stumble over Christ because
they're blind and they don't see Him. They stumble over him
because they're not looking for him. They stumble over salvation. That's all in Christ. It's all
by God's grace. It's received by faith in Christ
because it just doesn't make sense to them. They just cannot
understand. They just think I got to do something.
I got to do something. I'll even make a work out of
faith. I got to do something. It has to be more complicated
than believing Christ alone. It has to be more complicated
And God did all the work. It has to be more complicated
than that. They try to make salvation difficult. Scripture calls salvation
rest, resting in Christ, resting from your labors. And they're
trying to make salvation difficult, saying it's got to be harder
than that, than just resting in Christ. And none of the gospel
makes sense to their natural mind. So they stumble over it. They stumble over Christ. and
sadly they fall into hell. To them, Christ is the rock of
offense. Salvation in Christ alone, that's
offensive to the flesh. It offends the pride of the flesh,
the will of the flesh, the ability of the flesh. Salvation in Christ
alone is offensive to the flesh. Salvation by grace alone just
offends everything. It offends our wisdom, just everything. So the flesh rejects Christ because
he's offensive to them. That way of salvation is offensive
to them because they can't humble themselves enough to fall at
his feet. They can't humble themselves to trust Christ alone. So Christ,
that stone, that precious cornerstone, will fall on them like a grindstone
and it'll crush them. grind them into hell. That's
God's just judgment. They didn't want Christ. So he
fell on them and crushed them. But the believer falls down before
Christ and begs him for mercy. Now the saved, they're going
to fall. They already fallen an Adam,
but they're going to have to fall again. They're going to have
to fall off their high horse of pride. They're going to have
to fall off their high horse of religious ceremony. They're
going to have to fall off the high horse of trusting in their
own works, and they're going to have to fall down before Christ.
And we fall down before Him. When we fall on Him, that breaks
the heart. Now that breaks us. God's never
going to save somebody that's not broken. God would be broken. When we fall on Christ, our heart
is It gives us a broken and a contrite spirit that begs for mercy that
will rely on Christ alone. And you know what? God saves
every one of those people. Let me show you a scripture.
Psalm 34 Psalm 34 verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that
have a broken heart and save it such as be of a contrite spirit. God despises the proud. They
think that their works are good enough to satisfy him. They want
to bring their works before God and that's offensive to God and
no wonder it's offensive to God. God sent his son into the world
to do what pleases him and they reject that. They hate that.
Well then if you're going to bring something besides God's
son, that's going to be offensive to God. But God never, ever despises
the weak. Those who have a broken heart
and a contrite spirit, God never despises them and has mercy on
them every time. Because falling on Christ broke
them. And you find a broken sinner, heart broken over who and what
they are. God will have mercy on them every
time. Now that's the difference. I ask again, That's the gospel
God's given us, what we're gonna do with it. What we're gonna
do with it. I hope God will give us the faith
to believe Christ, make us faithful to our generation. All right,
the Lord bless you.