“And He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time. 10 “At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 “And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. 12 “And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out. 13 “The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 “But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.’ 15 “So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 “He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard it, they said, “May it never be!” 17 But Jesus looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone’? 18 “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”
The hour was at hand for Jesus to be delivered up into the hands of evil men and accomplish what He had come to do.
He had entered Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, purged the temple of money changers and merchants, and for this final week of His earthly ministry He would be found daily in the temple, teaching the people and confounding those in opposition who were at this point desperately looking for a way to murder Him without bringing reproach upon themselves.
Jesus Himself makes reference to these days at His arrest in the garden when He confronts them with their own cowardice.
“Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber? “While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.”
Luke 22:52-53
MURDEROUS INTENT
There can be no argument against an assertion that the chief priests and leaders had murder in their hearts. Sprinkled throughout the gospels are statements very much like the one we see in verse 47 of Luke 19; “And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him”
In the verse following our text verses, #19, again it says, “And the scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on Him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that He spoke this parable against them”
We see them trying to trick Him into saying something subversive against the Roman government, they attempt to stump Him or get Him to utter what they would consider heresy by claiming divine authority to purge the temple.
By His actions He has already confirmed His divine authority, but they ask him anyway where He gets the authority, then when He asks them the question about John’s authority and they refuse to answer Him, He refuses to answer them also, not because He wants to evade the question, but because the answer to His is the answer to theirs.
Quite frankly, it is He who stumps them at every turn until they give up and stop questioning Him, as we see in chapter 20 verses 39 and 40.
Jesus goes on teaching the people without interruption, and the next time we see the chief priests, in chapter 22, they are paying Judas to betray his Master.
These things were not done in ignorance. These were not zealous and well-meaning people. They were envious (Mk 15:10), they knew exactly who Jesus was by this time, and even knowing who He was all they could think of was killing Him. So vile were they in their intent that they had no qualms about turning Jesus over to the Roman Governor (20:20), knowing that if the Romans decided to execute Him it would be done in the most inhumane fashion ever devised by the wickedness of the human heart.
Now this should not shock or surprise us. The fact that these were the leaders in Israel, the very cream of the religious elite and the rulers of the nation that was entrusted with the oracles of God does not alter the fact of the depravity of the human condition.
Paul traced the digression for us in Romans five when he said in verse 6 that we were helpless, and in verse 8 that we were not only helpless but deliberate sinners, and in verse 10 when he declared us enemies in arms against God.
The simple truth is that the collective rotten heart of Adam’s fallen race wants God dead, nothing less.
I won’t spend a great deal of time on this example as it is only one example in millions, but I ran across a 2005 article from the New Yorker about an author named Philip Pullman, a very loud atheist who has written a series of children’s stories in which he openly and harshly criticizes Christianity and the church.
A conservative British columnist named Peter Hitchens wrote an article in 2002 about this author and named the article, “This Is the Most Dangerous Author in Britain”. In this article Hitchens said of Pullman that he is the writer “the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed”.
In the trilogy of books by Pullman called “His Dark Materials”, children fight against God, finally killing Him at the end of the third book so they can live as they please unhindered and unburdened by His oppressive rule.
There is now a movie out loosely based on the first book. The movie is called “The Golden Compass” and one reviewer indicated that the story line is toned down to look innocent enough to the parents in hopes that children will then want to read the books and the parents will buy them.
As I say, that is just one blatant example from someone unashamed to voice his atheistic approach to life. But let’s not get too cocky in our assessment of him; but for the grace and the calling of God none of us is any less guilty than Pullman of wanting God dragged off the Throne we wished to usurp and crushed by our sin.
That was the desire in the heart of the enemy of our souls when in Heaven he rose up in rebellion wanting to be above his Maker.
That was the desire he introduced to the heart of the first man and woman, and it wasn’t the eating of the fruit that was sin, it wasn’t the picking of it that was sin, it wasn’t Eve’s misquote of God’s instructions or Adam’s failure to teacher her accurately. The sin occurred when in their hearts they decided they didn’t need God and wanted to be their own god.
And my friends and family, since all of mankind was in Adam’s loins when he sinned, we all inherited that same nature, and the base of that nature, the desire of the deceitful, putrid heart of man, is that God would just die so we could have the whole vineyard.
GODLY AFFECTION
I’d like for you to take a journey with me now in your imaginations. Some will be able to see farther than others, none of us will be able to see past the rim, but let’s take it as far as we can.
The Bible says that God is Love. 1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God for God is Love”.
That is not saying that love is God, but that God is love. It is also not saying that is all God is, but we can say that God defines love.
Now I will not go into a teaching on the topic of love itself here; much can be intuited by us and most of us have sat through sermons and Bible classes talking about love.
Here is where I want us to go on our journey; back to eternity past. The worlds have not been created. The Word who is God, who was with God in the beginning has not yet spoken light into being. There are no angels, which also are created beings and therefore had a beginning… there is only God.
Since God is love and God cannot change, He is love eternally.
Love must have an object in order to exist. By definition, love must have a focus, a target, a recipient.
Therefore in eternity past when there was only God, this perfect love was shared only in the Triune Godhead, perfectly, wonderfully, and this is where I must stop because we’ve reached the rim beyond which none of us mortals is able to pass.
But please consider this with me, having reached this awe inspiring place of wonderment, what a both terrible and marvelous thing it was then, for this love that had no other object than Himself, to determine to crush and be crushed for the redemption of an as yet non-existing enemy… those He would call into being.
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
Isa 53:4-6
Perfect, eternal love, obligated only to His nature and character as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, holy God, acting according to this very love, set Calvary’s cross into the center of eternity and began the walk there.
“But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.” Isa 53:10-11
God sent His servants with His warnings and with His loving encouragement and His promises and one by one they were rejected.
Jesus confronted the opposition with this fact also.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 “So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” Matt 23:29-33
Can we pause here for a moment to once more note the courage of this Lion of Judah? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m pretty certain that if I knew a certain group of people was really wanting me dead and looking for an excuse and an opportunity to kill me, I’d be very tempted to steer clear of them if I could, and while I am a man of convictions I cannot say with absolute surety that when it came time to speak my piece my voice wouldn’t crack a little.
In the very parable He has just told, Jesus has let us know that He was well aware what these men before Him were about to do. The Master had sent His beloved Son to give the managers of the vineyard one more chance to do right, and they were going to drag that Son out of the vineyard and dash Him to death.
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Words and music by Stuart Townend
©1995 Kingsway’s Thankyou Music
CCLI #146987
THE REJECTED STONE
Let’s read verses 15 and 16 of our text again.
“So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to them? “He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard it, they said, “May it never be!”
His hearers would have understood that the vineyard in the story represented the nation of Israel (Ps 80:8ff, Isa 5:1-7). We know now of course that some 40 years later General Titus sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and took the people away in dispersion. More than that, they were going to lose their spiritual place.
So when they say, “”May it never be!” they are responding with the same strong expression Paul used several times in Romans. It is akin to saying “Perish the very thought!”
Now considering the sort of attitude they had been previously showing it’s difficult to determine if they were saying “May it never be” out of shock at His words or as a further challenge to His authority and His claims. In any case, He extracted a strong reaction from them, and indeed, this was something they were very concerned about.
The Pharisees and the Chief Priests and the elders in Jerusalem had it pretty cushy in those days and they didn’t want their apple cart upset.
Yet at the same time they lived in fear that the dark cloud of the Roman Empire which hovered continuously over them would suddenly descend and take away what they had.
In John chapter 11, when the news of the raising of Lazarus over in Bethany reaches the ears of the leaders in Jerusalem this account immediately follows:
“Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” John 11:47-50
He raised a man who was dead four days back to vibrant life, so they plotted to kill Him. They knew that this was the Son of the owner of the vineyard. They knew exactly who He was and they rejected Him.
It is interesting here that Jesus quotes the same Psalm the people were quoting as He rode into the city. In Psalm 118 we find this in verses 25 and 26.
“O Lord, do save, we beseech Thee; O Lord, we beseech Thee, do send prosperity! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; We have blessed you from the house of the Lord”.
When the people waved their palm branches and said, “Hosanna”, they were saying, “O Lord, do save” as it says in the Psalm. Depending on what translator you’re reading Hosanna can mean “Save us now” or “Save us please”.
The cries of the people must have still been ringing in the ears of these men before Jesus when He reminded them of earlier lines from the Psalm and challenged them to consider their meaning.
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” Psalm 118:22
They understood the implications of what He was saying to them, thus their strong reaction recorded in verse 19. Previously they had been careful about not offending the people by trying to publicly destroy Jesus, but now they were ready to lay hands on Him immediately. This confirms to us that they knew He was telling them that because of their rejection of Him the Jewish system was going to be set aside and the kingdom of God would be offered to others. This was actually a culmination of numerous occasions where He had told them that the nations, meaning gentiles, would sit at the Father’s table. One example is Matthew 8:11-12. Jesus marvels at the faith shown by a Roman Centurion, and in response to that faith He declares,
“I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
They obviously didn’t like this message anymore than they appreciated His words here in our text.
They had treated Him as insignificant. They were the builders who were building their religious system and their nation and to them He was a stone to be tossed aside as unworthy of notice.
But the Father’s assessment of Him was quite different, and the Father would make the stone the builders rejected the very cornerstone of His church, and they, the builders, were to be rejected now by Him.
It has always been the Father’s assessment of the Son that sinful men have ignored at their great peril. This should be a warning flag to unbelievers except for their inability to understand.
We are increasingly seeing and hearing bold and blatant statements from people in the world that diminish Christ and paint Him as a total insignificance. I was recently flipping television channels in the late afternoon and passed a cartoon sitcom that was portraying Jesus being whipped mercilessly by a Roman soldier and they were fitting it into the joke line of the program.
It grieved me deeply seeing that, to think that the people drawing that and producing the show and the ones laughing at it do not understand what they are bringing down on their own heads. It reminded me of another account I read and I went to look it up to share with you here.
It is a story of Henry Martyn, “…the Cambridge scholar and early nineteenth-century Anglican missionary to India. On one occasion, as Martyn was traveling through an Islamic nation, he was shown a picture of Jesus bowing down and clinging to the robes of Mohammed. Martyn broke down in tears, and when one of his colleagues asked what was the matter, he said, ‘I could not endure existence if Jesus were not to be glorified. It would be hell to me, if He were always thus to be dishonored.’ Henry Martyn quoted in THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE, James Montgomery Boice, 2002, Crossway Books pg 199
Church, in our day as perhaps never before in history, the things we see and hear around us should serve as a wake up call to diligence in every true believer, to hold up the name of Christ in reverence and respect with unfailing courage and devotion.
In another week we are going to gather together on the most singularly joyful day of the year for Christians and celebrate the fact of the resurrection and we will greet one another with the cry, “He is risen!”
So let us be mindful now that there is a terrible judgment coming and it will utterly crush the one on whom it descends. Jesus Christ is to be magnified, He is to be glorified, He is to be worshiped and adored as the ‘beloved Son’ of the Father, for He is the very capstone of the Kingdom.
This is the Father’s own assessment of His Son. Never let Him be less than this for even a moment, in our minds or in our hearts.
