Introduction
• Throughout His ministry, Jesus had spoken about the time when His hour would come – the hour in which He would be called upon to fulfill His life’s purpose by dying on the cross to save humanity from an eternity in hell. He had always known that His ultimate purpose was to make the ultimate sacrifice.
o But for most of His ministry, He refrained from describing Himself too often as the Messiah in His teachings because He knew that the consequences would be disastrous for Himself and for God’s plan for salvation. If He openly claimed to be the Promised One from God, many of the Jews would want Jesus to lead them to victory over the Romans and reestablish the earthly kingdom of Israel.
• However, His time had finally come, and now He began to speak more freely about Who He truly was. Matthew 21 begins with the scene of Jesus returning to Jerusalem for the last time, only this time Jesus didn’t come in under the radar like He usually did. This time a huge multitude of people followed Him into the city all the way from Jericho, and as He rode into the city of David on a donkey, these people spread out their clothes on the ground while others cut down tree branches and spread them out on the road before Him. Whereas before Jesus had made every effort to avoid this kind of display, He now entered Jerusalem publicly presenting Himself as the promised Messiah, the King of Israel.
• The chapter continues with Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple just as He had done at the beginning of His ministry. Then Jesus leaves Jerusalem and stays the night just down the hill in Bethany. When He returns to the city the next morning, Jesus shifts His focus to telling the harsh truth to the Jews: they had failed to keep God’s law, and now they were going to lose their place as God’s elect people unless they turned from their evil ways. He first reveals this through the illustration of the withered fig tree (vv. 18-22). When the chief priests and elders of the Jews came to Him questioning His authority, Jesus quickly put them in their place.
• Then Jesus continues by telling two parables to illustrate the situation that the Jews were in, and it is the second of these parables that we will be looking at today.
1. Parable Told – Jesus’ Illustration
a. Judean vineyards →The rocky hillsides and Mediterranean climate of Judea made it the perfect place to grow grapes, so all along the Judean countryside farmers planted large vineyards to produce wine. In those days, it was common for a landowner to plant a large vineyard to rent out to other men who were called vinedressers.
i. So, in His usual manner, Jesus took a situation that was a very common part of the daily life of the people to whom He was speaking and used it to illustrate a heavenly message to His audience.
ii. Matthew 21:33-46 → Read along in your Bibles with me starting in Matt. 21:33 (READ v. 33)
b. Provision for the vinedressers → In verse 33, Matthew records Jesus’ description of the vineyard in His parable, but just like all of Jesus’ parables, this description carries with it a meaning that goes beyond the surface of the situation.
i. The vineyard → There are many things that this short verse teaches us about the vineyard and about the landowner.
1. We learn that the landowner took great care in preparing his vineyard and made every possible provision for the vinedressers.
a. Prepared the ground → First, the landowner prepared the ground. In the rocky terrain of Judea, it would have taken a great amount of work to remove all of the stones from the ground so that it was able to be plowed.
b. “Planted a vineyard” → Next, we find that the vines had already been properly planted so all the renters had to do was grow the grapes.
c. “Set a hedge around it” → Next, it tells us that the landowner set a hedge around the vineyard. A vital part of any good vineyard in 1st century Palestine was some sort of a barrier to surround the property. Jesus’ day was one where it was not uncommon for thieves to raid vineyards. So, a “hedge” – either a stone wall or an actual hedge of thorns – was placed around the vineyard to keep out thieves and animals.
d. “Dug a winepress in it” → Not only had the landowner already prepared the ground, planted the vines, and built a protective wall, he also dug out the wine-vat for the renters to press the grapes. In those days, a wine press had two pits dug out of the rocky soil, and the pits were connected by a small channel and built so that one was higher than the other. The grapes were then pressed by foot in the higher vat, and the juice drained through the channel down to the lower vat.
e. “Built a tower” → In addition, the landowner built a stone tower in the vineyard that served two purposes. First, it acted as a watch tower for the protection of the vineyard. Second, it provided lodging for the ones who worked the vineyard.
2. After renting out his fully-equipped vineyard to the vinedressers, the landowner leaves and goes “into a far country.”
a. In 1st century Judea, vinedressers could pay rent in one of 3 different ways: 1) They could agree on a stated amount of money, or 2) They could agree on certain stated amount of produce/goods, or 3) They could set a percentage of the fruit of the harvest (usually 1/4 or 1/3 of the harvest) to be paid for rent.
c. Time to Pay the Rent → So the vinedressers work the vineyard while the master is away, but all the time they knew in the back of their minds that the master would return one day expecting compensation for the use of his land.
i. Read verse 34 with me. (READ v. 34) → The master gave the vineyard into the care of the vinedressers, and he expected the vinedressers to put the vineyard to good use and to produce fruit by the time he returned. So just as vintage time rolls around, the master returns home and quickly sets out to collect his rent.
1. The master sends some of his servants as representatives to the vinedressers, seeking to collect the rent. The parallel accounts of this parable in Mark and Luke show that the master sent these servants three separate times, one right after another.
ii. Vinedressers’ Reaction → The landowner had made every provision for the vinedressers to use his vineyard. He had prepared the land, placed a hedge and built a tower for their protection, and even dug out the winepress for them. But once again Jesus uses an all too common reality to make His spiritual point: the vinedressers were abusing the rights of the master of the vineyard because he had been absent for a long time.
1. Vinedressers’ Rejection → The vinedressers took the representatives of the landowner and abused them. When all that the master sought was his rightful payment, the wicked vinedressers spit in his face by rejecting his messengers. (READ v. 35-36)
a. They took the 1st servant and beat him, sending him away shamefully, but the master sent another.
b. They took the 2nd servant and stoned him until he was severely wounded, and they sent him away empty-handed, but again, even knowing how they had treated the first 2, the master sent another representative.
c. When the 3rd servant was sent, he must have known the fate of the two before him, but still he went to the vinedressers, asking only that they hold up their end of the bargain. But this time the tenants took it one step farther and brutally killed the innocent servant and cast him out of the vineyard. But even then the master did not give up.
d. He sent even more servants to them, hoping that the evil vinedressers would change their ways and do what was right, but just like they had with the three servants before, the vinedressers beat and stoned and killed these men too. Yet even after all of this, the master of the vineyard graciously decided to make one last effort, to give his tenants one last chance.
2. The Landowner’s Son → So we look to verse 37 (READ v. 37). The lord of the vineyard thinks, “Even though they rejected me by killing my servants, surely they accept my son!”
a. But when the vinedressers saw the only son of the master coming down the road to meet them, what they saw was not a chance to change their ways. What they saw was not someone who they should respect as the master’s own flesh and blood. What they saw was an opportunity, an opportunity to seize control of what they viewed as their vineyard.
i. Let’s go on in the passage (READ v. 38-39).
b. So even at the point when the master had sent his own son as a messenger to his workers, they cruelly rejected him and killed him.
2. Parable Explained – Jesus’ Message to the Jews
• But now let’s take a closer look at the parable and realize that the story that Jesus tells here is really the story of God’s dealings with the children of Israel.
a. Israelite Nation → From the time that God promised to make Abraham “the father of many nations” to the time Jesus walked this earth the Israelites had been God’s chosen people, but just as they had so many times throughout their history, the Jews failed to obey God’s commandments over and over again. So in the last days of His earthly ministry, Jesus makes this point to the Jewish leaders by telling them “The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers.”
b. Provision for the Israelites → As is the case in each of Jesus’ parables, each situation, each person, and each place represented something else spiritually.
i. The vineyard: the Jewish nation → The message behind His parable was just as clear to Jesus’ audience then as it is to us today. The landowner who planted and prepared the vineyard is God, and the vineyard that He planted is the Jewish nation. The vinedressers in the parable represent the priests and leaders of the Jews whom God had placed in charge of Israel, his spiritual vineyard.
1. Just as the owner of the vineyard had made every possible provision for the vinedressers, God made every possible provision for the children of Israel.
a. Prepared the ground (deliverance/direction) → The owner of the vineyard prepared the ground for planting, and in the same way God prepared the way for the Israelites to do His will. The story of the Hebrew nation begins with Jacob and his descendents who become slaves in the land of Egypt. But God brought Moses out from among His people and provided them a way out of bondage. Later when they were wandering in the wilderness, God provided them with food and water and kept their clothes from wearing out. At countless other times we how God provided even the most basic needs for His people when they chose to follow Him.
b. “Planted the vineyard” (nation) → Just as the landowner planted the vineyard, God planted the Israelites to grow and prosper. The Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt, but when God delivered them out of Pharaoh’s hand, He established them as the nation of Israel and chose them to be His very own special people.
c. “Set a hedge around it” (protection) → The landowner in Jesus parable also took every precaution to provide protection for his vineyard by placing a hedge around the property. In the same way, throughout the history of His people, God provided protection for His children from enemies in times of peace and victory over their enemies in times of war. As long as the Israelites remained loyal to the Lord, He kept watch over them and made them prosper in everything they did.
d. “Dug a winepress in it” (law) → Not only did the master of the vineyard plant the vines and build a wall he also gave the vinedressers the tools necessary to produce the wine by digging out the winepress. In the same way, God gave the Israelites the perfect tool for them to use to produce great fruit for His kingdom: the Law of Moses. This law could provide the Israelites with a solution for every problem they would face and practical spiritual direction for them to follow.
e. “Built a tower” (homeland) → And finally, just as the master built a tower for the workers, a place for them to live and a place from which they could defend the vineyard, God gave Israel the Promised Land of Canaan. In the book of Joshua 24:13, God is speaking to Israel through Joshua and He says, “I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.” God provided the Israelites with a “land flowing with milk and honey,” but with this blessing He expected them to shoulder the responsibility of furthering the borders of His kingdom.
2. God, the master of the vineyard, left his vineyard, the people Israel, in the hands of the priests so that they would lead the people to produce fruit for God’s kingdom. In all that they did, the Israelites were to glorify God and give Him all their praise. By doing this, they would be able to harvest a spiritual crop to be able to give back to God when He returned to collect.
c. Time to Pay the Rent → But often times when God would return to collect His spiritual rent, he would find that His children were not producing fruit like they should. At various times throughout the history of Israel, God had to send His own representatives, His own messengers to the children of Israel and to their leaders with the plea that they return to the work that He gave them to do.
i. The servants in Jesus’ parable represent the prophets that God sent to His people at various times throughout their history.
ii. Israel’s Reaction → However, as Jesus points out so well in His parable, the Jews treated the prophets of God much like the vinedressers treated the servants. At times when Israel needed spiritual guidance, God would send them a guide. At times when Israel needed to be reminded of everything that God had done for them, God sent a messenger. And at times when God’s children had wandered away from Him like lost sheep, God would send a shepherd to try to bring them back home.
1. The history of the Israelite nation was a spiritual roller coaster of steep drops and slow climbs, of ups and downs. God had done everything for His people, but time after time, Israel forgot their Lord and turned away from Him by neglecting the Law that He had given them. So God would send His prophets, His messengers to the lost Jews, calling them back to righteousness, to a spiritual relationship with their God. But just like the wicked vinedressers, the Israelites abused the prophets. Sometimes the Israelites totally ignored the message of the prophets. At other times they heard the message of the prophets, but because the message called them out in their sin, they rejected it altogether.
a. Elijah → God sent the prophet Elijah to Israel in a time when the worship of the false god Baal was at its peak. Elijah prophesied and worked miracles in the presence of the Israelites, but they still refused to turn from their idolatry. Ahab and his wife Jezebel had just taken power on the throne of Israel, and Elijah went to great lengths to try to bring God’s message to them. Yet even after witnessing God’s victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, the stubborn king refused to heed Elijah’s warnings.
i. Elijah eventually had to flee from Jezebel and the people and go into hiding.
b. Isaiah→ Now we look at Isaiah, another messenger that God sent to Israel when they had turned back to idolatry. Isaiah’s warnings were not what the people wanted to hear. They were caught up in all forms of immorality and the worship of false God’s, so Isaiah came to them with a warning that destruction would come if the people didn’t repent. And God’s judgment came swiftly on the Israelites when Assyria came to the borders of the northern kingdom and conquered Israel. But Israel wasn’t alone because Isaiah went on to prophecy that Judea would eventually become captives to the Babylonians. Isaiah’s message was an unpopular one but the people needed to hear it. Even so, the people neglected Isaiah’s warnings, and the priests and leaders rejected the prophet of God.
c. Jeremiah → Just as Isaiah had predicted, the people of Jerusalem and Judea were on a crash course for destruction. Israel fell under the control of the Egyptian king and turned again to idolatry instead of turning to God for strength. So God called His servant Jeremiah to go to the Jews with a warning to stop their evil ways and turn back to the Him. Yet in spite of the warning of a messenger from God, the Jews continued in their idolatry, and God’s swift judgment came when King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, and took God’s people into captivity.
d. John the Baptist → This pattern of the Jews rejecting God’s prophets continued even into the time of Christ. God commissioned John the Baptist to proclaim the coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah, and while many people received the message and believed that the Christ was coming, the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders refused to hear John’s message that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
e. Over and over again the children of Israel fell away from God and fell into idolatry and immorality. But God, in His infinite mercy, patiently sent messenger after messenger to the Israel pleading with them to come back to Him. Yet almost every prophet that God ever sent to the children of Israel met with some degree of rejection, especially by the Jewish leaders – the ones that should have accepted God’s messages first. In Matthew 23, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for their rejection of the prophets and for their rejection of Him. (READ Matthew 23:29-37)
2. Israel rejects the Son → So finally God decided that it was time to make one last attempt to reconcile the children of Israel back to Him. God had always known that it would come to this. So God, the Master of the vineyard, sent His only Son Jesus as the Great Messenger and Prophet to His people. He sent them the promised Messiah, the Savior of the World.
a. But just like the wicked vinedressers in parable, when the Jews saw God’s Son coming to them, they rejected Him just like all of the prophets before Him. The Jews and their leaders knew the prophecies about the coming Messiah; they had witnessed Jesus teaching with authority; they had witnessed His incredible miracles. Yet even with all of the evidence right in front of them, they rejected His claim to be the Son of God.
b. Many of the priests and Pharisees and scribes even believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but because He wasn’t the kind of Messiah they wanted, they denied His deity.
i. Many of the Jewish leaders rejected Him as the King of the Jews because they loved their positions of power too much.
c. So the Jews, the wicked vinedressers, took the only Son of the Master of the vineyard, the Son of God, and they killed Him. God had given them one last chance to come back, and they threw it back into His face.
3. Self-condemnation → Now we turn back to Matthew 21. Jesus has just finished His parable, and the chief priests and elders of the Jews stand condemned as the wicked vinedressers.
a. So Jesus asks them a question (READ vv. 40-41). They answer Jesus’ question correctly, but by doing so, they declared their own guilt as the vinedressers from the parable who had rejected God’s messengers and killed God’s only Son.
b. The Cornerstone →Jesus then poses a rhetorical question to his audience and quotes a passage from Psalm 118 that predicted the Jews’ rejection of the Christ. The image that Jesus applies here is of masons who are selecting stones to use to build a wall. They inspect each stone and discard the ones that don’t fit into the wall.
i. But Jesus tells them that even though they rejected Him like a builder rejects a stone, He has been chosen by God to become the Chief Cornerstone – the stone that sits at the head of the corner that joins the two walls together. The One that the Jewish leaders had rejected would become their King and would ascend to Heaven to sit at the right hand of God.
4. (READ v. 43) → Finally, Jesus comes right out and tells the Jewish leaders that because they did not accept Him as the Messiah, salvation would be taken from them and given to the Gentiles. Jesus, by becoming the Chief Cornerstone, had joined the wall of the Jews to the wall of the Gentiles. Now the Gentiles would be given the chance for salvation that the Jews refused.
3. Parable Applied – Jesus’ Message to Us
• Jesus used this parable over 2,000 years ago to illustrate how the Jews and their leaders had rejected God by rejecting His messengers, but we all know that one of the wonderful things about Jesus’ teaching is that His parables are just as relevant to our lives today as they were back then.
a. Parable applied to Christians → Every part of Jesus parable can be applied to each and every one of our lives, but the characters and places are a little different. Today, God is still the Master of the vineyard, but now His church is the vineyard.
i. The vinedressers in the parable represented the chief priests and leaders of the Jews, but under the new covenant – the covenant of Christ – we all as Christians are priests in the church that Christ built, and each of us plays a role in the spiritual guidance of that church.
1. So we are the vinedressers.
a. But just like the vinedressers from the parable, we have a choice of whether to pay our rent or not.
ii. God’s Provision for Us → Like the landowner in the parable, God has made every provision for us to succeed.
1. God has prepared the way for us to get to Heaven.
2. God has planted us as His chosen people in this world.
3. God has placed a hedge of protection around us.
a. Even in times when bad things happen to us, God tells us in Romans 8:28 that “all things work together for good to those who love God.”
4. God has given us the tools we need to do His work while we’re on this earth
a. We all have a copy of His instruction book, we all have talents that we can use in His service, and we’ve all been blessed to live in a country where we enjoy freedom and wealth and opportunity.
5. God has blessed us with a Promised Land to look forward to
a. Christians can live the difficult life and walk the straight path because we know that we have the chance to be in heaven one day with God. But we also realize that while we wait for the day to come when we all get to heaven, we have our own Promised Land to live in with each other here on earth because we are all part of the household of God.
6. God has provided us with everything we need in this world, but there is still one problem.
b. Time to Pay the Rent → Since God has blessed us so much, He expects us to work hard in His vineyard.
i. But what happens when God comes to us to collect His rent?
1. Every time we sit down and study a portion of God’s word, every time we hear a Bible class lesson, and every time we hear a sermon preached, God is sending a messenger to us.
a. But the problem that the vinedressers had when the master’s servants came and the problem that the Israelites had when God’s messengers came was that instead of listening to the message, they shot the messenger.
b. So how do we react to these messengers from God? What do we do whenever God sends us a message?
ii. Not talking to me, or is he? →So often those of us who have been coming to church and have been Christians for a long time sit and listen to sermons as if the preacher is talking to everyone else in the auditorium except us.
1. We sit there during the sermon and take in what the preacher is saying, but often times, while we hear the preacher’s words, we don’t hear the message. Sometimes I think we listen to sermons like this:
a. Shattered window → Imagine back to when you were a little kid and you found yourself in a situation where someone in your group of friends got into trouble, but you had to stand there and listen to the lecture from the teacher or the parent too. For example, many of you probably grew up playing backyard baseball with your neighborhood friends. Imagine that you are back in your childhood playing a game of baseball one summer afternoon, and you’re sitting in the dugout when one of your friends steps us to the plate and hits a long ball deep to left field. The ball sails over a fence, and the next thing you hear is the crash of a shattering window. In no time at all the owner of the house comes rushing out to you and your friends and begins to lecture you about breaking his window.
b. Now while normally you wouldn’t like being lectured to, this time you don’t really mind so much because in the back of your head you know that it wasn’t your fault. Your hands weren’t the ones holding the bat when it knocked a ball through the neighbor’s window. So while this man whose widow is destroyed may be getting on to you all telling you to be more careful, he’s not talking to you specifically. His lecture is meant for the one that was directly responsible for the broken window, not for you. You don’t mind this enduring this lecture so much because you know in your mind that it’s directed toward someone else and not to you. After all, your friend does need to be more careful not to hit the ball through someone’s window!
c. Or maybe you don’t mind standing there and listening to the lecture because the man is just getting on to all of your group of friends, and not anyone in particular. “After all,” you think, “we’re just kids. We break stuff all the time. People are always reminding us to ‘be more careful.’” So since the man isn’t singling anyone out, everyone can hide behind the idea that “I’m not in trouble; all of us are in trouble.” It’s a lot easier to get in trouble if you have friends that get in trouble with you.
d. But did you ever stop to consider that maybe the point of the man’s lecture was that you and your friends should not have been playing baseball close to his house in the first place? In reality, while only one kid directly broke the window, all of you were at fault because all of you were playing baseball. It could just as easily have been you that hit the ball through the window.
i. All too often it is the same situation with us when we hear a message from God’s word. The preacher or Bible class teacher makes a powerful point about sin and temptations in the lives of Christians, and we sit there wondering, “I wonder who he’s preaching to in here this morning?” Or we may just leave the worship service that morning having only heard the words and not really having listened.
c. Right between the eyes → But sometimes the preacher or Bible class teacher or even a passage of Scripture that we come across while reading will bring us a message from God that knocks us right between the eyes. It’s at these times that it seems as though that sermon or that Bible class lesson or that passage of Scripture was directed right at us.
i. Maybe the preacher preached a sermon one Sunday that hit a little too close to home. Maybe what the preacher said stepped on a few too many toes. You may have heard about someone saying, “Now preacher, you’ve stopped preaching and gone to meddling.”
1. Maybe God has sent a messenger to us with a message that may be hard to hear because it doesn’t fit in with our current lifestyles or it condemns something in our lives that we’re not quite ready to give up doing. But when we heard that message, when God called us back to purity, when we were given that opportunity to return to the Lord, we took His messenger and stoned him, rejecting God’s message and refusing to change the things in our lives that need changing. So we don’t change our ways, and we continue to live in that sin.
2. Maybe sometime later God sent that message to us again, maybe by another messenger, but just like the first time, instead of receiving that life-saving message with arms wide open, we again reject it, and we persecute another of God’s messengers when all the messenger was trying to do was give us the blessing of another chance in life.
a. So we live on even longer in sin, too stubborn to admit that we need to change and too prideful to make any attempt to change. But God, in His infinite patience, sends a third messenger to us, and just like the first 2, we cast out the messenger and spit in the face of the God Who is offering us a chance for eternal salvation. We refuse to change our ways, instead choosing to kill His messenger by rejecting the message.
3. Yet, even after all of our blatant refusal to change, God proves even more stubborn that we are, and He offers us another chance to change. However, since we have rejected all other attempts and have chosen to remain in our sins, God decides that this will be His last shot. He thinks, “Even though they have rejected my messengers, maybe they will accept my only Son.” So God sent us Jesus. But even this doesn’t seem to matter to us because whenever we see Jesus coming to us with the greatest of all of God’s messages – His message of salvation – we continue in our sinful ways. Maybe we didn’t conspire to kill the Master’s “beloved” Son like the vinedressers in the parable, but each time we sin, each time we reject God’s message, and every time we neglect to hear God’s message, we become just as guilty of the murder of Jesus as the vinedressers were of the murder of the master’s son.
a. Whenever we fail to let a lesson affect us because we’re not listening closely enough or whenever we refuse to change when a lesson shows us that we need to change, we have become like the vinedressers. But what the vinedressers and the Israelites and we so often forget is that it doesn’t do any good to shoot the messenger. You may have heard of people physically cutting passages of Scripture out of their Bibles or preachers being fired because some of the members weren’t too happy about what they had to say in their sermons.
b. What we must understand is that killing off the master’s servants didn’t hold back the master’s punishment. When Israel persecuted God’s prophets, they still suffered the consequences of their sin. And we today stand in that same position. Killing the messenger doesn’t change the message, and it is the message that we will be judged by.
4. Conclusion: How Will You Be Broken?
a. Go back with me one more time to our passage in Matthew 21 and look down at verse 44. After quoting the Scripture from Psalm 118 calling Him the Chief Cornerstone, Jesus says… (READ v. 44).
b. So at the end of His parable, Jesus gives us the same challenge that He issued to the Jewish leaders of His day.
i. We only have 2 options to choose from. We can only respond to Christ in 1 of 2 ways:
1. We can either be broken with repentance as a result of falling on Christ, OR…
2. We can refuse to repent of the things in life that are holding us back and face the judgment of God, the Master of the vineyard.
ii. Are we being responsible with our Christianity?
1. Shouldering the full responsibility of Christianity entails more than just wearing the name “Christian.” It means that we have the responsibility to listen to the messages of God and actually apply them. We often pray to God for help to “take the lesson and apply it to our lives,” but being responsible with our Christianity means that it’s time to take that prayer and put it into action.
2. When God sends messengers our way, we have the responsibility as Christians to have hearts that are open enough to His loving messages to make them a part of our lives. We must have hearts that are tender enough to break when we fall upon Jesus Christ the Chief Cornerstone. We have the responsibility as Christians to listen to the message instead of shooting the messenger, because if we don’t, the Master of the vineyard will come back to judge us for our sins.
iii. Whether you chose to fall on Jesus Christ our Chief Cornerstone with an open heart or with a heart of stone, you must realize that either way you fall you will break.
1. So the question comes to you today: How will you be broken?
