Let's look at the 20th chapter
of Luke tonight. When I was preparing this message,
this message is about the parable of the vineyard. I got to thinking
somewhat of the awesomeness of the Lord himself actually being
made flesh and dwelling among us. And it just the awesome thought
of that, that he actually could come here. We can't even understand
or imagine it, but he could come here to actually speak to us
and teach us. And we have his word here to learn from. And
so I'm going to start reading in verse nine of chapter 20. then began he to speak to the
people this parable. A certain man planted a vineyard,
and led it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for
a long time. 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 again he sent another servant,
and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him
away empty. And again, he sent a third, and
they wounded him also and cast him out. Then said the Lord of
the vineyard, What shall I do? This is the Lord's teaching us here.
And what I was talking about when I started this and saying
it, not really even able to comprehend the Lord coming here or in the
flesh or even having an understanding of that is I think of what vain
and foolish things I would probably be doing if I were to come and
be the king of this world and the ruler and be as the Lord
is. But yet, where do we find him
here in this passage of Scripture? We see here in the first verse,
it says, and it came to pass on one of those days as he taught
the people in the temple and preached the gospel. We see here
the great importance of all of all the things that You know,
one could be doing. Here he is. He's spending his
time with the people, his people, teaching them and preaching to
them. And so this tells us a little bit about the character of our
Lord. And again, say the vain and foolish things that I would
be doing, but he what care and concern he has for his people,
that he would spend his time here because that's his father's
will to redeem those people. And so he taught them a parable.
The Lord used different means to teach and to preach in the
minute. A parable, and I kind of looked
up some of these words to see what they said. A parable, they
said, is a placing beside. So it's for comparison. And so
we've all heard the illustration, you know, to tell a crooked stick
from a straight stick. I've always kind of thought,
well, you know, you can tell when you look at a stick whether
it's crooked or not, but that's not always so. And what came
to my mind is in college, I like to play pool a lot. And whenever
you go into a pool hall, they have the billiard sticks up against
the wall and you can pick one up and you can look at it. But
you can't tell whether it's actually crooked or not. It can look straight,
and then when I get to playing the game, I find that I'm not
hitting straight. It's because the stick's not
straight. But you can't tell. And the only way you can tell
is if you put it against something that is straight. And the slate
table that the pool table sits on is straight. And so if a straight
stick, if you roll it across it, it'll roll smoothly, not
really make any sound. But a crooked stick, Even though
you can't tell it and even looking down the shaft of the stick,
you can't tell you roll it and it makes a lot of noise and bounces
around. So it's only in the presence of the truth or in this case,
the straight stick that we can see the error for what it is.
And that's the danger of it is that you can't always tell and
you can't always see that. And so so in the same way that
a blind man can't really understand the darkness that he's in. unless
he's seen the light at some point. He can never really fully understand
it in the same way that I can't in the presence of the holiness
of the Lord. It's only there that I can really
see and understand how truly simple I am. And so we look at
a parable and this parable is used to teach. So what is this
all about? What we read here is this just
a story? And well, no, we know it's not. We know it's something
to compare something. The Lord's using this to illustrate
an example. And one of the people that he's directing this to,
they see that it's for them. In verse 19, it says, 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. So
they had some understanding of what the Lord was directing this
parable at. And so what we're going to do,
I want to go through this verse by verse and just pick it apart
and we can see who the Lord is referring to by each of these
people in the parable. So we're going to start in verse
nine. It says a certain man planted a vineyard in Matthew's account. Let's actually look at it. Matthew
21. In verse thirty three. And this
parable appears in all three of the Gospels. Here, another parable, and there
was a certain householder which planted a vineyard and he hedged
it round about and dig the wine press in it and built a tower
and let it out to husband and went to a far country. So in
Matthew's account of this, he gives us a little bit more information
here. So I want to look at who is this man, who is this certain
householder, this certain man, later in the parable he's referred
to as the Lord of the Vineyard. In order to see that we have
to know something about him, and actually we see a whole lot
about him here, even though it doesn't quite tell us exactly
who he is, we can look at, through his actions, who he is and what
he's done. So first of all I see that one, he's created. He created
a vineyard. There was no vineyard before,
nothing broken down that he built up. He created of his own will
to build up the vineyard from nothing. The second thing I see
is that he's planted. So there's no vineyard. He says,
I'm going to create a vineyard here. And so I'm going to take
this seed, this dead seed, put it into the ground and give it
water and nourish it and thus give it life. And so he's going
to grow up and plant. The third thing I see is that
he's provided protection for it. It says that he built a hedge
around about it. This hedge was to protect from
beasts, from men. So you can imagine that the young
vines growing up that any animal would come in and step on it
or read it or somebody could drive a cart through and run
over everything and tear it up and it dies. And so while the
plant is young and tender, he's got to build a hedge about it
to protect it. The fourth thing we see And he's
digged a wine press. And so a wine press is just a
big barrel, so to speak, and then a wooden press above it.
And what it'll do is press down the grapes after they put it
in there. And then out comes the juice that they would eventually
make into wine. So what he's done here is he's
provided all the means necessary to make the wine. Everything
that it required to make the wine, he's provided for this.
And that's the whole purpose of the vineyard. And number five,
it says that he's built the tower. And so he built the tower so
that he could watch over it from one end to the other. There's
no part that he couldn't see. He built the tower up and he
can look down upon it and see the whole vineyard that's been
created. I want us to look over at Isaiah chapter five. There's
a little bit more about this vineyard here and we can see
whose vineyard it is. Let's start in verse 1. Now will
I sing unto my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.
My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And
he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted
it with the choice of spine. And he built a tower in the midst
of it and also made a winepress therein. And he looked that it
should bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray
you, betwixt me and my vineyard, what could have been done more
to my vineyard that I have not done to it? Wherefore, when I
looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth
wild grapes? The answer is, yes, it did. In
verse two, he says it brought forth wild grapes when he looked
for it too. You can see the great care and
thoughtfulness that this man put into building this vineyard.
Everything was thought for. There was nothing that it needed
that it wasn't already provided for. And we can see his thoughtfulness
in just in the words in the verse 2 there, he said that he cast
out the stones thereof, gathered the stones of. So the stones
in the ground that are going to provide no nourishment, they're
not going to help the vine grow. He took the time to cast out
each of those stones. And I had to do that myself as
a boy in the garden. And I know that's that's a very
long and tedious process. And it says that he chose the
choice is fine. It wasn't just any vine that
he put in there. It was the choice is fine. These are the vine of
his choosing. And so who was this man? We can see these things
about him and know that this is God, the father who's created. He's planted. He's provided for
everything that we need. Notice that he also expects his
vineyard to produce fruit. He said he looked to it that
it should bring forth grapes. Paul said, what man planteth
a vineyard and eateth not the fruit thereof? And so what he's
done, if we go back to our text here, Luke 20, verse 9, he looked for it to produce fruit
and he said that he led it forth unto husbandmen. and went into
a far country for a long time. And so the husbandman, we've
seen who the certain man lord of the vineyard is, the husbandman,
his responsibility was to care for the vineyard. So he had to
till the ground, pull the weeds, water it, prune it, nourish it,
all these things to be responsible in order to bring the vine up
so that it might produce fruit. He's also to give the Lord of
the vineyard the fruit that comes from the vineyard that's produced.
So that's his due. That's what's due unto the Lord
of the vineyard is the fruit. And the fruit's not going to
be as good as it could be unless it's cared for. So if you just
let the vine grow and don't prune it and don't water it, especially
the pruning part, the whole pruning part of the vine is casting off
the branches that are not producing fruit. They're using up nutrients
that could go toward the fruit. So they're saying we're going
to cast this off and not use this and let those nutrients
go into the fruit that it might reach its full potential. So
it says in verse 10, and at the season he sent the lord of the
vineyard, a servant down to the husbandman that he should give
him of the fruit of the vineyard. So the time had come that this
vineyard had grown and the fruit had come and it was the time
of the harvest of the fruit. And so he sent a servant into
him saying, I want the, you know, that which is due unto me. You
render what my due is. But we have a problem here. And
so we read on, it says, give him the fruit of the vineyard,
but the husband beat him and sent him away empty. So this
tells me that there's a certain amount of jealousy and covetous
going on here, that the husband didn't want to give up what he
had. He wanted to keep it for himself and represented power
and control unto him. And so it may have. been something
that started a long time ago that he, you know, had a friend
come to him and said, you know, hey, can you give me a bottle
of wine out of here or give me some of the fruit of this vineyard?
And he sold it to him. And, you know, what a good friend.
He did that for me. And he gets a certain amount
of good feeling about giving this away and keeping that which
is not his. And so he drives a certain amount
of control and power from it. And he didn't want to give that
up. And so they held on to it. And this is really evidences
our nature, how we are by nature, that we're sinful and don't want
to give God the glory that he deserves and is owed. If we look
in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, there's a little more about that. And look at verses 20 starting
at verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, and
not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things that
are despised have God chosen, yea, and things which are not
to bring to naught the things that are. And why? that no flesh should glory in
his presence. And so in looking at this and what caused me to
think about this scripture is in verse 26, where he says, You
see, you're calling rather than how not many wise men after the
flesh, not many mighty and not many noble. These are all the
flesh getting in the way. It is that the Lord in his reasons
has not called these men because these men, they're wise. Wisdom gets in the way. Might
gets away. The noble, they believe God owes
something to them. It's these things of the flesh,
they get in the way. And so we're thankful for the things that
the Lord withholds from us to keep us so that we are coming
to Christ with not having these stumbling blocks in our way.
And so the flesh gets in the way, so back to our text. So
we can see how the flesh gets in the way of this husband having
the power over this vineyard. So what happened? Servant came
to collect and they beat him and sent him away empty. And
so this tells me three things about these husbands. One, they
didn't really know who this lord of the vineyard was. They may
have known who he was, but they didn't understand his character.
And so the second thing I see is they didn't respect him, and
therefore they didn't respect his servant, who by all rights
is beneath him. And the third thing is they dealt
deceitfully with him and his vineyard, and they withheld what
was due unto him. And so who are these husbandmen?
They are those who would pervert, distort, and omit for their own
gain. They would preach abominable
heresies. They would say that Man has a choice that you can
accept or reject God's offer for salvation. It's a complete
denial of total depravity. They would hold men accountable
to the law. Touch not, taste not, handle
not. And they glory therein. Because you're subject to the
law, they glory in other people's subjection to it. They say it's all of works. This
is this is our recommendation to God. What Christ did wasn't
enough. We have to do something extra. They compromise the word
to make it less offensive. So they say things they're not
OK with God hating God, hating sin. They have to say, well,
God loves the sinner, but he hates the sin. But the problem
is, is that sin comes out of the heart and there's no separation
between the two. And fourthly, they pervert who
God is and how he saves. And I want to look at Isaiah
chapter one. This really summed up for me
what, you know, that even in Isaiah's day here and even in
our day, it's the same thing going on. And so if we look at
Isaiah chapter one, verse 11. He says, this is this is God
speaking. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me? So evidently, they're making
a big to do and trying to cause attention to what they're doing.
They're trying to offer something to make themselves more appealing
to God. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me, saith the Lord? I'm full of burnt offerings of
rams and the fat of fed beasts. I delight not in the blood of
bullocks or lambs or of he goats. So there's nothing that I can
offer him. And when you come to appear before me, who has
required this at your hand to tread my courts? So it's they're
making a vain show in front of him. They come out. They're not
meeting in his name. They're meeting to some gain
and glory in themselves. Verse 13, bring no more vain
oblations, incense, your prayers, their abomination unto me. The
new moons and stavis, the calling of assemblies, your rituals,
the things that you do that I didn't set up, I cannot away with. It's iniquity. Even the solemn
meeting, even your meeting where you're not doing any of these
things because you're not meeting in my name, it's iniquity. Your
new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth. They're
a trouble unto me, and I'm weary to bear them. And when you spread
forth your hands, making a vain show of emotion, I will hide
mine eyes from you. And when you make many prayers,
I will not hear for your hands full of blood. And so these are
the scribes. These are the Pharisees. These
are the hirelings, the evil men that would call themselves pastors,
false prophets. Let's go back to our text. Chapter
20. And so we also have here. We've
seen who the husband are, but it says in verse 10, that season
he sent a servant that they should give him the fruit of the vineyard.
And so a servant here in the amplified version says that he's
called a bond servant. And so we already know who the
bond servant is. Bond servant is a man who owes
another man debt. In the Old Testament, we read
about this. And he can't afford to pay his debt. And so he says,
I've got nothing to pay, so I'll pay with my life. I'm in servitude
to you for my life. And for a fixed amount of time,
I'm in servitude. And the only way he could get
out of that servitude was if he worked off his debt in the
amount of time or the year of Jubilee, when he was set free. But there came a point at the
end when he was set free or he worked off his debt. that he
could say, I love my master. I love my Lord. And he provides
everything for me. He's good to me. And I don't
want to leave where I'm at. I don't want to go away from
this. I've got what I want right here. And so he can bore it all
through his ear. And so signifying his being united
to that master. And he was his servant, his willing
bond servant for the rest of his life. And so these servants,
Here where it says bond servant, these men loved their master.
These weren't just men that were forced to do something they didn't
want to do. These were men that wanted to be with their master.
And so they were faithful and trusted, more so than another
servant. These men actually wanted to
be where they're at. So you think about the servant who once was
a bond servant and then actually had his ear bored through. I
would say the master looked upon him a little bit differently
because it's it's somebody that's doing what he wants to instead
of doing someone doing what he has to. And so that's who these
servants were. They wanted to. So they had such
love for their master. We even see that they'll endure
physical punishment. Let's read the verses 11 and
12. And again, he sent another servant and they beat him also
and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty. And again,
he sent a third and they wounded him also, cast him out. And so
what I see here and was thinking about, imagine being, you know,
a servant working for this lord of the vineyard. And he comes
over to one of the guys you're working with and says, I need
you to go down here and I need you to go collect the fruit from
this vineyard and bring it back to me. So he goes, you see him
come back and he's been beaten. And so then he goes to the next
servant and he says, I need you to go down here also and get
this fruit from me. They didn't give it to him. And
they sent him back and they beat him a little worse. And he does
with another and he comes back and he's been stoned. He's on
the edge of holding his life by a thread. Some he sent and
they didn't even come back. And then imagine being the servant,
the willing bond servant that he comes to and says, I need
you to go for me also to go after the fruit. So there was a very
willingness to serve their master because they loved him. And so
imagine being that one that he came to after all the other ones
had come back beaten and and some killed. And so the second
thing I see about this servant is that he never speaks of himself.
He only speaks of his master. He's going to collect his master's
fruit. He's not going there to say, well, I'm You know, the
servant of the masters, I'm a really important guy, I command his
authority on this visit and you can put a little bit extra in
there for me too. No, he's saying only that I'm going to collect
the fruit for my master was stealing to him. So he never speaks of
himself, only of his master. And these men endured beatings,
railings, punishments, even death. We are even given their names.
Though it's not in this text, it says their names are actually
Noah, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all
the prophets, the Lord's prophets and the faithful pastors that
stand and proclaim his word. That's who the servants are,
the servants that preach their master's name and not their own,
only the master's name. They preach his gospel and truth
and only the truth. That's even in our own court
of law. We have the truth. Nothing but the truth and only
the truth. And thirdly, they're uncompromising in the word. They
don't water down the word to appeal to men so that they can
feel fused or make make a vain show by compromising the word.
Fourthly, they render all glory into his name. They don't speak
of their own. We don't we don't speak of anyone
but the Lord. And that's what these servants
do. And fifthly, They do whatsoever they're called upon to do in
serving the Lord, whether that's being a servant that's great
or the servant is simple in serving the Lord. It's the same. And
that's what these men are called upon to do. So we see what faithfulness
and love are required in being a servant. It's not just being
a servant because you have to serve because you want to. You're
willing and you're faithful. So verse 13, then said the Lord
of the Vineyard. What shall I do? We've seen to
this point, he's exhausted all the servants, each one of them
is gone and come back beaten or killed. These men, men have
continually been at his face in disobedience and rebellion. And one thing I noticed even
further about this Lord of the Vineyard, you know, God, the
father, is his long suffering. So even though these men, who
these evil husbandmen beat and murdered these men, he kept sending
another servant. They deserved, after the first
one, for him to come down there and wipe them out. But he didn't. He was patient and long-suffering
with them. And he sent another, and he sent another, and he sent
another. Even in the face of theft, beat
and murdering his servants, direct opposition to him. And so what
makes me see this is understanding what his longsuffering is to
me. How longsuffering has the Lord been with me, with my own
failings, with my own lack of faith, lack of obedience? I fail
the Lord every day. We constrain ourselves to say,
you know, I won't do that again or I've learned that this time.
And we don't. We do the same things over and
over. And what a blessing it is that our Lord is longsuffering.
So look in. So verse 13, he said, Then said
the Lord of the vineyards, What shall I do? He says, I'll send
my beloved son. It may be that they will reverence
him when they see him. In Mark's account, he says, having
therefore one son, his well beloved, he sent him also last unto them. So out of options, there are
no more servants to send. He sent them all and they're
gone. And so he's going to send his son, his beloved son. He sends him last and we see
what great confidence he has in his son. He says that maybe
they will reverence him when they see him. So he's very fit
and very able for this job. And he has complete confidence
in him to carry out the task exactly as he commanded him to
do. And he didn't feel the same way
about his servants. He didn't say, well, maybe when they see
my servants, they know they represent me. But this is his son, his
beloved, his only son. And so he's the heir of all things
and came with the full authority of his father. And so that's
what gave him this great confidence in sending his son there. And
so we'll pick up in verse 14, it says, but when the husband
saw him. They reasoned among themselves, so they knew who
he was as soon as they saw him, there was no doubt in their mind
who he was. So that was one thing that the
Lord of the Vineyard was right about is when they saw his son,
they knew who he was. It says they reason among themselves,
and that's always going to be trouble whenever we as men reason
among ourselves, saying, this is the heir. Come, let us kill
him that the inheritance may be ours. And so this reasoning
among themselves, I was even reading that without even spending
much time thinking about it. You know that that's something
that's not good when as men we reason. And what I what came
to mind is The one time that when we do reason among ourselves,
we're doing it to justify our sin. And so they reason among
themselves, even though their conscience was probably screaming
to them, this is the heir, this is his stuff, this is his father's,
and they're owed this. They reason among themselves
for their own covetous and sinful lusts. to kill him, and so we
see that it always justifies sin whenever man reasons with
himself, just as the Pharisee that stood to pray that he prayed
within himself. So they reasoned to kill him
because they hated his father, and therefore they hated the
son. Verse 14 says, Come, let us kill him that the inheritance
may be ours. So whose son is he? Him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you with wicked hands have crucified and slain. And so just
as this son, as soon as he was come into the vineyard, these
wicked men saw who he was and wanted to kill him. When the
chief priests and officers saw the Lord, our Lord, when they
saw him, they cried, crucify him, crucify him. Same reaction. This is the same son. And so
what we have here is the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was seen,
he was also crucified and same way this this man was says in
verse 15, so they cast him out of the vineyard and they killed
him. This is a foreshadowing, the Lord is telling us of his
own death. And they hated him for what he represented and what
he preached. And so what did he preach? He preached that God
give it to whom he will through divine election, that you can't
save yourself and that only God, only God can through calling.
I can't give myself a new heart. I can't come to God. Only he
can only he can make me make me willing. And thirdly, what
did he preach? He preached that Christ came
to save sinners, not those that followed the law, not those that
seem outwardly righteous, but only Christ came to save sinners
with no other condition. And fourthly, the only way to
God, the father is through the son. And so just as these men
killed this son, the chief priests, the Pharisees, the men in Christ's
name, they said, we'll not have this man to reign over us. And
so they killed him for the same reason. They hated his father.
And so they hate him for what he stood for. So in verse 15,
so they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. What therefore
shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them? So Matthew's account,
let's turn over to Matthew 21 again to see what Matthew's account
says. And in verse 40, it says, When
the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto
those husbandmen? They say unto him, he will miserably
destroy those wicked men. And so I see two things here.
First, is that he will come, and he will come to collect that
which he's due. He's coming to collect his fruit,
and he's coming because they've killed his son. And secondly,
he'll miserably destroy the wicked. All the workers of iniquity,
when he comes, he will destroy them all. In verse 41 here, he
says, and he'll let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen. which
shall render him the fruits in their seasons. So he said, You
polluted and used for your own gain my vineyard. You used it
for wicked and deceitful purposes, and so therefore it's going to
be taken from you and given to others. So let's turn to Acts
13 to see who he's giving it to. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should have
first been spoken to you, but seeing you put it from you and
judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. And so this is actually the foretelling
of the Lord saying that he was the Jewish nation have rejected
Me is Lord and Christ and I'm going to pull I'm going to pull
this from you and give it to those that will render the fruit in
due season. These are the Gentiles. And so
in Luke in Luke's account that they immediately respond with
God forbid. How could this happen? This is taking away our power,
our influence, our our life is the law. We live by the law.
And men are basically controlled by the law. That's how we have
our sense of power. We live in control by it. And
so this is removing that from them on top of taking away the
blessing from the Jewish nation. And so in verse 42 here in Matthew
21, I love this response. The word gives them this rebuke. Jesus said into the. Pharisees
standing around him and scribes, did you never read in the scriptures?
And so he starts it. And so we you know that they
read that in the scriptures, but it's a very much a rebuke
to them. And he goes on to say the stone
which the builders rejected, the same has become the head
of the corner. So this stone, which the builders rejected,
they looked at it. And I read a little bit of some
of the history behind that without going too much into it. In the
second building, the temple, they'd see a stone that they
wanted to use for a place and they said, well, you know, we're
not going to use that there. You know, that's just no good. And
they'd build over here some more and said, well, maybe we can
put it here because all these stones had to be hewn and they wanted
it to fit. And so they kept looking back
at this stone and said, no, it's not this is not fit. It's not,
you know, what we want here. Eventually, when they came to
the end, they found that it fit perfectly in the cornerstone,
slid right in exactly as it should, even though they rejected it
from every other position. And so this stone, which the
builders rejected, which says it says it's all of grace and
not of works. And this stone is Christ. And
this stone came as meek and lowly, didn't come with trumpet sound
as a ruling and reigning king and came as meek and lowly. And
this stone, Christ, comes through revelation and to those whom
you will. This stone comes only to the
elect, and this stone, Christ, came to save sinners. And it's
become the head of the corner. He's the king, both Lord and
Christ, all powerful and almighty God. And without him, he says
we can do nothing. And he's the rock on which we
stand. And this cornerstone is actually the meeting of two walls,
so the cornerstone sits where one wall and the other wall come
together, and all the weight rests upon this cornerstone.
And this is the Jewish nation and the Gentile nation, God's
elect, that he's put together. All rests upon Christ, the rock,
the cornerstone. And so, in verse 42, we'll pick
back up, Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the scriptures,
the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become
the head of the corner? This is the Lord's doing. And
it is marvelous in our eyes. And so only the Lord could do
this. Only the Lord could come as meek
and lovely. Only the Lord could come as he
did. He's the cornerstone that they've rejected, that he's now
the head of the corner. And he says it's marvelous in
our eyes. And this marvelous in our eyes, I really didn't
understand the way it was written. And I looked up and what it actually
says in the Hebrew is it says, and it's wonderfully done. And
so I think that really shed me a lot of light on how that was
marvelous in our eyes. So we can say it's wonderfully
done. And so though we're faced with opposition and with doubt
on all sides, yet keeping this phrase, it's marvelous in our
eyes. Weakness will always defeat strength. Paul said it's only
when I'm weak, then am I strong. And it's marvelous in our eyes
that meekness and lowliness are preferred above pride and accomplishment. And it's marvelous in our eyes
that the simplicity of Christ confounds and defeats all opposition
and all doubt in this world. And though when this world sees
it, they're confounded by it, they don't understand it. But
yet when we see it, we rejoice and it's marvelous in our eyes
and we rejoice in it. So picking up verse forty three.
Therefore, therefore, say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall
be taken from you and given to a nation with which bring it
forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this
stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder. And so on whomsoever shall fall
on this stone shall be broken. This stone, as we've seen earlier,
the stone is Christ. All within me must be broken.
I can't come to him having any part whole. I must come with
an empty basket. I must come with no righteousness,
with nothing to recommend me. I must come broken. I'm a sinner
and I'm in need of mercy. And it's only in that condition
that will I be given mercy. And so we must be broken. And
so that's why we want to fall on that stone. That's the stone
that breaks us. Being broken will hurt my body
and it will be a travail to my soul. But it won't kill me. I
struggle with it, but it won't kill me in this life. I'm going
to be like my fiddleshift. When he was a baby, he was dropped
and it broke his spine and he couldn't walk the rest of his
days. And what a great, great trial to have and to live with.
And but it says in the end when, you know, he's Jonathan's son
and David eventually showed mercy on him and brought him forth.
It said every day he was he was he sat at the table of the king.
But he was still lame on his feet. And so what that shows
me is that though I'm broken, every day I've got to be carried
to the table. I can't, there's not a time when I get a little
bit better and can crawl or can start walking myself. I'm brought
every day, just like the first day I come. I'm carried to the
table of the king. And so if the stone falls on
me, it says it'll grind into powder. And so I watch these
shows on the History Channel or something where they find
these ancient ruins and they're broken in pieces. And it's amazing
they can actually put them back together. And so even they're
in hundreds of pieces, they'll form them back together and show
you what it looked like. But powder is different. Powder
is destroyed. There's no putting together powder
again. Powder is lost forever. And so that's why they handle
things so delicately. You see when they take them out
of these sites, as soon as it crumbles to powder, it's lost.
And it can never be formed again. And what I read about this is
the Jews in their stoning, and I've heard this before, they
stoned a man on a scaffold. It wasn't just he stood there
and they threw stones at him. They put him up on a scaffold,
up a couple of man heights high. I think it was two heights of
a man high. So, you know, about 12 feet.
And then they'd stone him. And if he fell, Probably 12 feet
is not going to kill you. But when he fell, if he fell
and died, then they would not continue stoning him. But if
he fell and was still alive, and they would take a large stone
from the top of the scaffold and cast it on him and would
crush him and kill him instantly. And that's what part of this
is referring to. This stone that falls on him,
it'll crush him to powder. And so there's no recovery. You
can't live from that. The purpose is only to kill you.
And so that's what this crushing the powder is. And so one element
of our story is left. So we've seen who the lord of
the vineyard is, is God the father. We've seen who the husband are
as the hirelings. And we've seen who the servants
are as the Lord's servants. We've seen who the lord of the
vineyard son is, is Christ Jesus the Lord. But the one element
left is the vineyard. And so that's the element in
which all these things are gathered around. The whole purpose behind
this is the vineyard. And the vineyard produces fruit
if the branches are cared for and are not broken off and cast
into the fire. And so this vineyard is God's chosen elect people.
This is the choice vine that he selected out and carefully
took care of. And the life of the vineyard
is not in the fruit, though we prune the vine, though we prune
the plant to get the fruit, the life's not in the fruit, the
life's in the vine, and that's in Christ. And so, he's our only
life, and so the evidence of fruit, fruit is evidence of life,
but the life is only in the vine. So, I'm going to close with Isaiah
27. called to me in thinking, you
know, well, what if I'm worried that I don't bring forth fruit?
You know, I don't want to be the branch that's cut off and
cast into the fire. And I was thinking that and I
thought that's so simple because I can't produce fruit. There's
no way that I can. And so in chapter 27 here, this
is a comfort because we see how the fruit is actually cultivated
and produced. And so just as we heard in that
song, this is the time when sin has been put away. The enemies
have been been vanquished. Flesh has been put down in verse
one. And that's what this is referring to. In that day, the
Lord, with his soaring great strong sword, shall punish the
Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked
serpent. And he shall slay the dragons in the sea. So sin and
death and unbelief, there are no more now. And so he says,
in that day, seeing you unto her, a vineyard of red wine. And so this concern that we have
of not producing fruit is all taken away right here, because
in verse three he says, I, the Lord, could keep it. So he is
our husbandman. And how faithful is he? He says,
I will water it at every moment. There's never going to be a moment
where the vine's not watered and then it dries up and doesn't
produce fruit. He says, I'll keep it every moment,
lest any hurt it. I'll keep it night and day. So
we never have to worry that at all times the Lord's watching
and taking care of us, the fruit in his vineyard. He says, fury
is not in me, sin's been put away. Who would set the briars
and thorns against me in battle? What would the things that would
try to keep him from his vineyard, from his people? He said, I would
go through them. I would burn them together. Or let let him
take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. And
so what this actually saying is it's an admonishment to say,
let him take hold of me, take hold of my strength. And that
he may make peace with me, and then he says it again to establish
it is sure, he says, and he shall make peace with me. In verse
six, he says, and he shall cause them that come of Jacob to take
root. And Israel shall blossom and bud, his elect, and shall
fill the face of the world with fruit. So we don't have to worry
because the Lord himself waters this vineyard. He guards it days
and night. He'll cause us to take root.
And he says we'll blossom and flourish and fill the face of
the world with fruit. So that's what I'm resting in,
is the Lord to take care of me.