Christ Rejected For Man's Redemption

Grace Fellowship Church iconGrace Fellowship Church

0 views

Shayne Poirier on Mark 11:27-12:12.

0 comments

00:00
This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
00:16
I'm always cautious when we begin, and I start with a story from modern events, that it has the ability or the possibility of cheapening the text.
00:28
But I want to start our time this afternoon by looking at just a very recent event in the state of the world that we are in.
00:39
In January of 2021, just before, if you remember all the hoopla that has been made of January 6th,
00:47
January 3rd, 2021, the United States Congress kicked off its 117th session with an opening prayer led by a representative named
00:58
Emanuel Cleaver. He was a Democratic representative, and so, at least in his mind, it was a pivotal moment as a new president was about to be inaugurated.
01:09
You could say an important prayer at a pivotal time. In many respects, as he prayed, he acknowledged the opportunity to steer the nation back, in his eyes at least, toward peace and prosperity and righteousness.
01:27
In Cleaver's opening prayer, he started by acknowledging or addressing, in his own words, he said, the eternal
01:35
God, who alone, he said, possesses sacred supremacy, who is the creator of the world and everything in it.
01:46
So far, it was a decent start, I think, to the prayer. And throughout the course of his prayer,
01:51
Cleaver acknowledged the difficult year that had been 2020. He acknowledged the destructive effects of pestilence that had been wracking the land.
02:02
He decried injustice and oppression. He even confessed that the nation and the government itself was overcome with division and unrest.
02:15
And you could say, if you listen to this prayer, and you can find it on YouTube if you look for it, you could say that as he listed all of the calamities that America was experiencing, in many ways, he acknowledged what we might rightly recognize as the just judgment of God upon a godless nation.
02:36
Chaos, disease, death, distress, and then what I would call a countless number of other contrary providences that might lead at least a sober -minded person to acknowledge their transgression and then to turn back to the living
02:53
God. And as he began to bring his prayer to a close, he quoted from Numbers 6, verses 25 and 26.
03:03
You might remember that, especially if you've been to a lot of liturgical churches. He said, he asked, may the
03:08
Lord make his face to shine upon us. And he said, be gracious to us.
03:16
He asked that the Lord would lift his countenance upon us and give us peace. That was his prayer.
03:22
And as I said, at least from a starting point, it was a promising start to a prayer.
03:29
That was until he reached the very last line of the prayer. And he prayed, we pray this in the name of.
03:39
Most of us would be at the ready to jump in, to chime in, to say, yes, in the name of the
03:46
Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, who else do we pray the attributes of God to God in the name of?
03:54
Who do we ask for grace and peace of in the name of who?
04:03
In what other name could we possibly pray the words of sacred scripture? We would insist, if we were in that room, we would say, in the name of the
04:12
Lord Jesus Christ. But that's not how the prayer ended.
04:19
As a matter of fact, that monumental crossroads, you could say, as Representative Cleaver pleaded for grace and peace, good requests.
04:30
He skipped over the only one who could bring grace and peace. And he said this, he said, we ask this in the name of the monotheistic
04:40
God. In the name of Brahma. And in the name of the
04:45
God known by many different names and many different faiths. And then to make a parody of the whole prayer, he finished with three words.
04:54
He said, Amen. All woman and all woman.
05:00
Amen and all woman. Now, we can find,
05:06
I know, right? We can find some humor in the absurdity of that kind of prayer.
05:12
In that kind of praying. But I would suggest to you that this is a crystal clear reflection of the heart of lost humanity.
05:23
Just one man's heart on full display, representative of all hearts.
05:30
And this is what I would say is the heart of the problem that befalls this godless world in which we live.
05:37
We live in a world that seeks the good things of God with one open hand.
05:42
And at the same time, we thrust away the Lord Jesus Christ with the other hand.
05:50
We live in a world where people are not merely neutral to Jesus. But altogether opposed to him and his gospel.
06:01
Even if they don't even know it. I will even go so far as to say today, many professing
06:07
Christians. Many who even profess his name and claim to be his follower. As Paul confessed with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
06:17
They take his name and they have a zeal for God, as Paul would say. But not according to knowledge.
06:24
They refuse to come to him on his terms. They refuse to love him on his terms. It could be said of them that they love the name of Christ.
06:32
But that they hate the law of Christ. And therefore, they reject all of Christ. The Christ that is the
06:41
Christ of reality. Not of the monotheistic God or in the name of Brahma.
06:47
But Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. And it begs the question, and children
06:53
I want to ask you this question. Why? Why do people refuse to acknowledge the sonship of Jesus Christ?
07:05
Why do some wag their fists at Jesus Christ? Why do some, and you will know many, and we know many.
07:15
Why do some take the name of Christ and yet reject the rest of him?
07:22
And really all of him. And what's more? What is
07:27
God going to do about this? What is he going to do with a world that insists on rejecting
07:33
Christ? As we've already heard our brother read, I think that our passage that is before us today answers these questions in high definition.
07:46
Why is it that people disdain Christ? And what is God going to do about it?
07:53
As Christ settles into his final days in Jerusalem, he's now going to interact with the highest order of the
08:01
Jewish elite. And as we observe this interaction together, we're going to see why it is that so many people reject the authority of Christ.
08:10
More than that, we're going to see how God is going to deal with those who reject him. And then finally, what we're going to see is how
08:17
God has and will sovereignly use the rejection of his son to accomplish a marvelous end.
08:26
So you could say, and I think if you look on the front of our bulletin, that this passage teaches the rejection of Christ for the redemption of man.
08:37
And while there are many aspects of this narrative as we look at it, you might say it's very straightforward. It's elementary on its face.
08:44
I think there's tremendous truth for us, for every one of us here in this passage. And so what we're going to do, we're going to mine the depths of this text together.
08:56
Children, if you're under the age of 18, I'm talking to you. Children and maybe young people.
09:02
I'm going to speak directly to you for a portion of this time, but you have to listen carefully early on to get it all.
09:10
And what we're going to do, it's often my fatal flaw as a preacher, is I often emphasize the first point so much so that it weakens the second and the third point.
09:22
But today, I believe that the Lord has led me in this study. We are going to emphasize those initial verses in chapter 11.
09:31
And then we're going to cover off Christ's parable in a bit brisker pace. And so let's begin today by reading verses 27 to 33.
09:42
It says this, And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him.
09:51
And they said to him, By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?
10:00
Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question. One question. Answer me and I will tell you by what authority
10:06
I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?
10:12
Answer me. And they discussed it with one another, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say, why then did you not believe him?
10:22
But shall we say from man? Because they were afraid of the people. For all held that John really was a prophet.
10:28
So they answered Jesus, we do not know. And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority
10:34
I do these things. The first truth that I'm going to highlight especially today is this.
10:40
We're going to have a look at the heart of those who reject Christ.
10:46
What is going on in the heart of the man or the woman or the child who refuses to acknowledge the divine authority and the lordship of Christ?
10:58
Verse 27 begins with Christ returning to the temple in Jerusalem. If we remember back to last week, it's still
11:07
Tuesday morning. And so just to refresh our minds quickly, we remember that Christ got up early in the morning before sunrise.
11:15
That his disciples proceeded from Bethany into Jerusalem. And as they were on that road to Jerusalem, they encountered the fig tree that Christ had cursed.
11:23
This is shortly after that. They've now made their way further on and we're told now that Christ is in the temple.
11:30
Now, it doesn't say it here in Mark's gospel, but Matthew and Luke tell us that when Jesus was there, he was teaching the people.
11:38
Almost like a street preacher, you could say. Teaching the crowds the things of God in the public square.
11:46
And many scholars would suggest that it was very likely that this took place at a prominent thoroughfare at the entrance to the court of the
11:55
Gentiles. Either at Solomon's porch or at the royal porch. Probably not distracted by or pushed away by the crowds that were going into or the crowds that were making their purchases, but on the outskirts as people made their way in.
12:12
And as Jesus taught the crowds in the open air, we're told that the chief priests and the scribes and the elders confronted him.
12:19
It was these three groups of people that made up what we call the Jewish Sanhedrin.
12:26
This was the highest council, the highest tribunal, who exercised some borrowed authority from the
12:33
Romans over the Jewish people. And I think it's interesting that in the
12:40
Greek writings, they were also sometimes referred to as the Presbyteron or the elders or even the
12:45
Gerousia, the unofficial Jewish Senate. So maybe like the representative in Congress.
12:52
Someone with a little bit of power, but not all the power. In verse 28, they wasted no time getting to the very heart of the matter as they approached
13:01
Christ. And their question was this. By what authority is Christ doing these things?
13:09
Who gave him the right to clear the temple the day before? Who gave him the right to block traffic and to enter into Jerusalem with the king's welcome?
13:19
Who gave him the permission to teach in the temple? And this is one of the themes that if we remember back, if you were here at the beginning of our study of the
13:29
Gospel of Mark, we dealt very heavily with the authority of Christ. How the authority of Christ was frequently challenged.
13:37
Well, it seems that Mark is interested in bookending his gospel by emphasizing the authority of Christ challenged and displayed at the beginning of Mark.
13:47
And then the authority of Christ again challenged and displayed at the end of Mark. And so that word that we might remember from a while back, the word gerousia, we haven't heard it for several chapters, now appears again in Mark chapter 11.
14:03
This word for authority. And it appears that Mark wanted to make this plain to us as the readers.
14:12
We see how many times he uses the word authority just in this text. But as the religious leaders, as these chief priests approach
14:21
Christ, Jesus doesn't engage in a futile dialogue, the one that they might expect him to enter into.
14:27
But instead he adopts for what was a common practice. If you were a rabbi in Jewish culture in the first century, if someone were to pose you a question, pose a question to you, it was very often the case that the rabbi would just pose another question back to their disciple.
14:45
And so as these highfalutin religious leaders come to Christ, he takes the role of teacher and begins to school them.
14:56
Verse 29, he poses a question back to them. And he asks this, he says, John's baptism, was it from God or was it from man?
15:05
Now what's interesting is that both Christ and the Sanhedrin would have immediately known that this was an impossible question to answer.
15:15
Now why was that? You see when John was in the thick of his wilderness ministry at the
15:20
Jordan River, it was the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the religious elite who refused to acknowledge him.
15:26
If you remember back to passages like the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, in Matthew chapter 3 and verse 7, he referred to those
15:34
Pharisees and Sadducees who looked on at his ministry as a brood of vipers. And so for the
15:41
Pharisees and Sadducees to acknowledge Christ now in this stage would be to completely contradict their previous assessment of him.
15:49
And then they would have to sheepishly admit that they were wrong about who
15:55
John the Baptist was and that John the Baptist was right. And we know because we know the religious leaders of Christ's day that they were beyond such an act of condescension and genuine humility.
16:10
And yet at the same token, what we see is that to deny
16:17
John's baptism publicly would be to brazenly insult all of the crowds who stood in that temple court.
16:24
After all, it was John that they held to be a prophet. And a good number of those people may have even been baptized by John and his disciples at the
16:32
Jordan. And so the chief priests refused to give an honest answer to Christ and these onlookers.
16:41
And what's more, I find it interesting that he was at Christ's baptism that as John lifted him out of the water, we're told that the
16:50
Holy Spirit descended on Christ in bodily form like a dove.
16:55
That the Father spoke from the heavens and said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Not only does
17:01
John the Baptist attest to the authority of God, but even the highlight of John the
17:06
Baptist's ministry would have been that moment when Christ's identity and divine authority was attested to by this
17:15
Trinitarian testimony. Every person in the Godhead at Christ's baptism by John the
17:21
Baptist was present for Christ's exaltation where his exousia was made plain to all.
17:31
So this is what we have. Christ in this brief encounter with the Sadducees, with the religious leaders, with the
17:39
Sanhedrin. Without question, it's a short exchange between Jesus and the
17:44
Sanhedrin, but I think it teaches us a great deal about why people reject
17:50
Christ. About why it is that people refuse to allow
17:56
Christ to hold sway over them. And in this brief encounter,
18:01
I'm going to show us at least four reasons why a person might reject
18:07
Christ. What we see in the hearts of these religious leaders. I was expecting that today was going to be a smaller group and I was expecting as well that we were going to have some kids here.
18:20
And so I really want kids, if you can make eye contact with me for a minute, each one of you. I really want to address you guys for about the next five to ten minutes.
18:31
And I want to tell you why it is that many of your friends will reject
18:40
Christ. And I want to tell you how it is and why it is that many of you may be tempted to reject
18:48
Christ. That you can be raised in a Christian home and you can hear about Jesus every day.
18:54
And you can see your parents' love for Christ. And yet, how temptations still come for you to turn from him.
19:02
And so I'm going to give four reasons. Adults, there's plenty for you here. But kids, I want you guys to pay attention and give me lots of eye contact so that I know you're listening, okay?
19:13
Especially those who are coloring. Perfect. So the first thing that Sanhedrin is trying to do as they're confronted with this dispute about Christ's authority is they try to rationalize.
19:31
Point one of four in the sub -points, if we can call it that, is to rationalize. When Jesus posed his question about John the
19:39
Baptist in verse 31, we're told that the Sanhedrin discussed it with one another.
19:46
Now that word discussed doesn't sound very sensational, does it? But what's interesting is every time
19:52
Mark uses that word discussed, when he wrote it in the Greek, he uses the Greek word...
19:59
I can say it every day of the week until Sunday. My goodness.
20:07
There we are. It's funny as I repeat it a thousand times and then I can't say it here. From which we get our
20:13
English word dialogue, of course. But in Mark's gospel, it's almost entirely used, this dialogue, almost entirely used in reference to those who are trying to figure out a way to escape their knowledge of Christ's authority.
20:33
We see it used, for instance, in Mark chapter 2 when the scribes questioned in their hearts, it says, how it was that Jesus could forgive the sins of a paralyzed man who he had also the power to heal.
20:49
And a really good commentator on the book of Mark, he says this, the Greek word appears seven times in Mark, always in the context of people trying to, this is important, evade the force of Jesus's word or claims on them.
21:08
Kids, I want you to hear me on this. People reject Christ, not because Christ has not shown himself to us.
21:19
As a matter of fact, people reject Christ because they refuse to acknowledge him and to submit to his lordship.
21:30
It's not a matter of a lack of evidence, but it's a matter of the heart. And a heart that is predisposed to disdaining
21:38
Christ. In the book of the Psalms, in Psalm chapter 19, we see two things there.
21:47
If you like theology, these are good and important terms, but in the book of Psalms, the first half of the book is given to what we would call the book of nature or general revelation.
22:01
And what general revelation gives us is this. It shows us enough about God that we know who he is and his power and his might and his glory and his justice.
22:13
But it doesn't yet give us enough to know salvation and how we are to be saved.
22:20
But the second half of Psalm 19 speaks of the book of Scripture.
22:26
I prayed a good part of that as we opened our time in God's word today. It's in God's word that we are made wise, that we learn how to be saved, as Paul wrote to Timothy, that would make you wise for salvation.
22:41
So in the book of Psalms, it tells us that we can know enough about God to be accountable to him, at least in nature, but not enough to know how to be saved.
22:50
But in the book of Scripture, we know everything that we need to know to be right with God by faith in Christ.
23:02
And the reason why people, at least in our context, who have heard the name of Christ refuse to repent and believe in him is not because they don't know enough to be saved or it isn't clear enough.
23:17
God has made it clear, but it's simply this. It's because they have become too smart for Jesus, or at least so they think.
23:27
They rationalize, and they think in their minds, I'm good enough without Christ.
23:34
Christ is old -fashioned. I don't need him. I don't like the Bible. Whatever it is, but they rationalize, or as the
23:42
Sadducees did, they discuss in their own minds and hearts how it is that they can rid themselves of Christ.
23:55
And this is plainly seen in the writing of many popular atheists today. Kids, tell me how this makes you feel or what this elicits in you.
24:06
The popular atheist Christopher Hitchens, he once wrote, anyone who can look me in the eye and say they prefer the story of Moses or of Jesus to the life of Socrates is intellectually defective.
24:24
And he says, Jesus Christ is Santa Claus for adults. Now what is really interesting was that Christopher Hitchens had a brother named
24:34
Peter. And Peter was just a little bit older than you. He was 15 years old when he decided he was not going to believe in God.
24:43
And so what he did was he took his Bible out into a field. He was in Cambridge, and he burnt his Bible in the field.
24:49
What a terrible thing to burn the revelation of God and of Jesus Christ.
24:54
But that is exactly what he did. And his brother followed after him and made a career of denying and rejecting
25:02
Christ. Now what is really interesting is later Peter would rediscover a
25:08
Bible and that he would read that Bible and that the Lord would save him. And so what you ended up with was you ended up with Christopher Hitchens who denied
25:16
Christ and then Peter Hitchens who was an advocate or an apologist for Christ.
25:23
And what is interesting is this, my young friends, is that when Christopher Hitchens died in 2011, he did not go and appear before Socrates, but he appeared before the triune
25:37
God. And on that day, I remember what my friend said one time. He said, Christopher Hitchens, a former atheist, he realized that God was and is.
25:49
And he said something that I thought was very stirring. He said, at least he knows that even though he will go to hell, that his brother is a believer and he can take comfort in that.
26:03
Paul has said, he's spoken of these kinds of men. Romans 1 .22, he said, they claim to be wise, but they become fools.
26:12
And the psalmist adds this, the fool says in his heart, the fool says in his heart, there is no
26:19
God. So these Sadducees rationalized to evade
26:24
Christ's claims over their lives. The second reason why the chief priests refused to acknowledge
26:30
Christ was because of the fear of man. In verse 32, it says that when they were afraid of all the people, or when they were posed with this question, they were afraid of all the people.
26:42
In Luke 20 and verse 6, it actually zooms in a bit more. And Luke 20 and verse 6 says this, that they were afraid that the crowds would stone them.
26:52
And so not only were they afraid to answer just for the opinions of the people, but they were actually afraid for their lives.
27:00
And this has been the case for many throughout the ages, that the people have been more inclined to die in their sins.
27:10
Sorry. Many people through the ages have died in their sins because they were afraid of dying for Christ.
27:19
And what a heartbreaking miscalculation. If you're going to die for something, boys and girls, if you're going to die for something, or if you're going to die from something, there is nothing better than dying for and in Christ.
27:38
There was a Puritan, his name was John Flavel. He said, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.
27:47
So when you fear God, you depart from evil. He said this, but by the fear of man, they run themselves into evil.
27:56
And it's kind of a silly picture, but to deny Christ because of fear for your personal safety, are you kids, are any of you guys afraid of bees?
28:06
Would you be willing to admit you're afraid of bees or wasps? No, okay, that's a good thing.
28:11
This helps my illustration. We have one over on this side of the room. He's a big kid. But imagine for a moment running from a bumblebee and seeking refuge in a wood chipper.
28:25
That is what it is to run from Christ out of fear for your life. Thirdly, they rejected
28:33
Christ because of the praise of man. Now it's important to understand the historical context of this interaction.
28:41
The chief priests, while they had some borrowed authority, and they had definitely more authority than the
28:47
Pharisees, they were far less popular than the authorities. They weren't the cool kids at school.
28:53
And the reason being is because they were seen as being compromisers and colluders with Rome. And so for this reason, they didn't have nearly as much social capital to lose or to work with.
29:07
And they had to do whatever they could to preserve what little popularity they had when they had the opportunity.
29:13
And what we see here is that they craved the approval of people. They craved the approval of people more than the approval and the honor of Christ.
29:24
And kids, I want to relay this to you. Of all the four that I'm going to give you here, this is going to be the strongest pull in all of your life.
29:34
To seek to be cool and to be accepted and to be praised and appreciated by people rather than living for the praise of God.
29:45
And the reason for that is this. When we get praise from people, it is immediate.
29:50
It's immediate gratification. It's like that notification on Facebook that tells you that someone just liked your post and you feel good about that.
29:59
But when we get praise from God, or if I can say approval from God is a better word, it is a deferred approval.
30:07
It's an approval that we receive by faith. We have the joy of obedience, but it doesn't come with that fast hit that we experience with the approval of people.
30:19
And yet, do not be fooled by it. It is a shame to gain the fickle praise of the world and to forfeit your souls.
30:31
I want to tell you a story about this. There was a statesman in the 16th century
30:36
England. His name was Sir Walter Raleigh. And I've seen a few portraits of him online.
30:42
If you can remember that name, Sir Walter Raleigh, look him up on Google after I preach.
30:49
And he is what you would probably describe, maybe the best word is flamboyant.
30:55
At least in his portraits, he always has these colorful coats and embroidered garments.
31:02
Sometimes with the coat slung over his shoulder or buttoned up to the very top of his neck.
31:09
Even by 16th century standards, he was a very extravagant man. At least
31:15
I can tell from these painted portraits of him. And yet there is a story of his willingness to be made low for the honor of another.
31:24
One day while Sir Walter Raleigh was walking with the Queen, pretty impressive company, walking with the
31:30
Queen, they came upon a mud puddle and a pile of mud that was blocking the road.
31:36
And what do you think Sir Walter Raleigh did? Well, based on the portraits that I've seen, he had a big, beautiful, bright, embroidered robe.
31:45
And he took off his cloak and he laid it on the ground so that the Queen could walk through or over the mud without getting her feet wet and dirty.
31:57
And I like what one of our Baptist forefathers said about this scene. He said, And thus, with unselfish motives, out of pure reverence for our
32:08
Lord, let us be willing to be made like the street to be walked over, if Jesus can be honored by it.
32:16
Let us lay out for our Lord the best that we have, even to the character that is dear to us as life itself.
32:25
If by doing so, we may bring glory to the holy and blessed name of our
32:32
Redeemer. It is worth exchanging all the praise of man in the world to be approved of by God through Christ.
32:42
It is worthy, little friends, big friends, to be counted as dung to the world and to have a profaned name, to be unpopular or to be disliked by the cool people in the world.
32:59
But it is a small price to pay for the honor of Christ. And lastly, the chief priests relied on what we would call suspended judgment.
33:11
Verse 3, when Christ asked them about John the Baptist, they said, We don't know.
33:16
They had suspended their judgment so they could avoid being wrong. And many people today rely on that excuse.
33:24
You might ask your friends at school, even at your Christian school, Do you believe in Jesus? Well, I don't know, but I'm trying.
33:33
Or sometimes we talk to adults and they say, I am looking into it. I'm seeking truth.
33:39
You might even say, they're an earnest seeker of truth. But that doesn't cut it.
33:47
For a short time, and maybe some of you might remember this, some seeker -sensitive churches were using the slogan,
33:53
Try Jesus. Give Jesus a try. He won't let you down.
34:01
Something like that. And let me tell you straight up. God has never commanded that we investigate
34:10
Christ. He is not impressed by our thinking good thoughts about him.
34:19
To give him a try. God is not, I think about a scene at Costco, God is not standing at a cosmic sample cart, inviting you to try
34:30
Jesus. He is seated on his throne. And he commands everyone everywhere to repent and to believe on his son, the
34:40
Lord Jesus Christ. But for these religious elites, they would have none of it.
34:46
This is a picture of the heart of those who reject Christ. I don't think any of us have found any of those reasons compelling.
34:57
Now in the next verses, Christ outlines the second truth in today's study. And as I mentioned, this is going to be briefer than the first half.
35:06
Here we see God's righteous plan for the wicked. God has a plan for those who reject
35:13
Christ. And it is wise and it is righteous. Jesus tells the story of a man who planted a vineyard and leased it out to tenants.
35:23
Now if we were to get in a time machine and go back to Christ's day, what we would find is that was actually a very common occurrence.
35:31
There was an abundance of wealthy landowners who enjoyed the prosperity of Roman rule.
35:37
They had tremendous legal and social protections. And they would engage in what we would call absentee land ownership.
35:45
And what that is, we see a little bit of that today, maybe in the more nefarious parts of the world or nefarious skyscrapers and downtown buildings and real estate and things like that.
35:57
But they would purchase big swaths of land and they would hire tenants who would live on those swaths of land and they would work the fields and they would give a portion of their profit back to the landowner.
36:10
Not all of that is bad, not all of that is good depending on who's the landowner. And because vineyards were big business in this region, it made perfect sense for Christ to use a vineyard for this parable.
36:22
And so in verse 1 we're told that the usual preparations were made by this landowner for such a vineyard.
36:27
There was a fence probably of stones or briars to keep the people that you wanted out, out.
36:35
There would be a pit that would be dug where they would put in a basin so that as the wine was crushed in the wine press above, a basin would catch the juices to make the wine.
36:48
And then there would be a tower. And if you were to build a tower on your property, what would you use it for?
36:54
In this case it was as a lookout. They were criminals, you need to be able to see them from a distance. It was a good place to store your tools.
37:01
It was a good place for the tenants to sleep at night. And verse 2 indicates that the normal practice that would occur for such, or what the normal practice would look like for such an operation.
37:13
When a vineyard was planted, the landowner would have to give the tenants five years. Five years to plant the vines, to let them establish and grow and to be strong and healthy and fruitful.
37:25
And then after that five years, it was the expectation that that landowner would send delegates on their behalf to go and collect a portion of the profits from the tenants.
37:38
And this was an arrangement that worked for both parties. And it was widely practiced in the nation of Israel. But in Christ's parable, and I should say as well, that it was a hefty profit that was shared with the landowner.
37:50
Between a quarter to half of the profits went directly back to the landowner. But in Christ's parable, beginning in verse 3, we see a problem arise.
38:01
Instead of the tenants paying the landowner his fair share, we're told that they beat his servant and sent him away empty handed.
38:10
And when the landowner sent another tenant, they beat him too and added shame to the beating.
38:16
I like what C .H. Dodd rightly says about this passage. She said the tenants paid their rent in blows.
38:23
As every servant came, they would beat the next one worse than the last. And with each consecutive wave of servants who were sent, the tenants escalated their violence until they eventually killed some of them.
38:36
Now if you were a crowd in the court of the Gentiles, listening to Christ interact with the
38:41
Sanhedrin, this would strike you as a very odd parable. And maybe not for the reason you'd expect.
38:47
As the crowds would listen to this, it's very likely that they would think, what a patient landowner.
38:54
That he would allow them to beat one servant and he would send another and to beat another servant and then he would send another.
39:00
It was very common in that time. Kids, do you know what mercenaries are? Maybe adults know what mercenaries are.
39:07
Assassins. It was very common in that time. Yeah, that got you excited, didn't it?
39:15
It was very common in that time. If you were a landowner and your tenants didn't pay up, you would go to an assassin or a mercenary, a hitman.
39:23
You'd pay them a certain amount of money and they would go take care of the tenants for you. And they would return the land and all of the profits to you.
39:31
And so for many of Christ's modern hearers, or contemporary hearers, in his day at least, they would be listening to this and going, what patience.
39:41
But Christ goes even further. What Christ says next is astounding, in fact.
39:47
We're going to read verses 5 and 6. It says this. And he sent another, and him they killed.
39:54
And so with many others, some they beat, some they killed. He had still one other.
40:03
A beloved son. The same words that were spoken about Christ at his baptism as John raised him from the water.
40:11
A beloved son. Finally he sent them to them, saying, they will respect my son.
40:18
But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.
40:27
And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do?
40:35
Christ says, he will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
40:42
Have you not read the scriptures? And we're going to stop there for a moment. Instead of the landowner hiring hitmen to carry out, or sorry, to kill the tenants, the landowner, in Christ's parable, sends his beloved son.
40:58
And it begs the question, what is this landowner thinking? To send his very son into harm's way in such a way.
41:07
Now it's possible he was trying to appeal to their integrity or to appeal to the authority of that son as the heir.
41:16
Whatever it was, the landowner, in his mind, believed that they would receive him.
41:22
But that's not what happened, is it? And so the people plotted to kill him.
41:29
And that's exactly what they did. James Edwards says, if you can dispense with God or kill
41:37
God, then humanity can become God. Jesus echoes the prophets.
41:44
What is the history of Israel, if not rebellion against God? What is the sum total of human history, if not the attempt to rid the universe of God?
41:55
And we're going to fast forward for just a moment to chapter or verse 12.
42:02
We're told that the Sanhedrin sought to arrest him because they feared the people, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them.
42:11
So they left him and went away. And they were exactly right. This parable had nothing to do with vineyards or the ethics of absentee land ownership.
42:21
This had everything to do with the history of the nation of Israel up until this moment. That God had planted a vineyard, which was the nation of Israel.
42:31
Isaiah 5 verses 1 to 7 speaks about Israel in those terms. We heard last week how
42:37
Israel was referred to as a fig tree, oftentimes in the Old Testament. They were also referred to as a vineyard.
42:44
God planted that vineyard. And when that vineyard did not bear fruit or to bring fruit to the landowner,
42:51
God himself, God sent prophets. And prophet after prophet after prophet.
42:57
And Hebrews chapter 11 gives us an account of the end that many of those prophets met with.
43:04
Some were sawn in two from the groin up. And so Isaiah 5 verse 1 says this.
43:13
Let me sing for my beloved, my love concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
43:20
He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it.
43:29
And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now,
43:34
O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?
43:44
When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now
43:49
I tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge. It shall be devoured.
43:56
I will break down its wall and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste and it shall not be pruned or hoed.
44:02
And briars and thorns shall grow up. I will also command the clouds that they rain upon it for the vineyard of the
44:10
Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.
44:15
And he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed, for righteousness, but behold, an outcry.
44:24
And so, what Christ is doing here is he's speaking against the leaders of the nation of Israel who were tasked to tend the vineyard.
44:32
That he is going to put them out of the vineyard altogether. He has been patient with them up to the eleventh hour.
44:40
And now Christ is going to, God himself is going to deal with these people. Now, I want us to see two things here.
44:50
First, the patience of God. Isn't it a marvel that God did not send a mercenary or an assassin the first time the nation of Israel sinned?
45:04
Isn't it a marvel that God did not strike Adam and Eve dead in the garden on that day?
45:10
Isn't it a marvel that God does not strike us down dead for our sins or to cut us down before we have the opportunity to repent and believe?
45:21
See with me here what patience of a good and holy God. And if we don't recognize the patience, we don't recognize the righteousness of that God.
45:31
But what a God who would show such forbearance and slowness to anger.
45:40
And also, see with me here the end of those who reject
45:46
Christ. Kids, I'm going to address you guys again. See with me here the end of those who will reject
45:54
Christ or have rejected Christ already. Do you guys remember your catechism class? Your catechism question from this morning?
46:01
Or this afternoon, excuse me? What does it say? Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
46:12
What's the first word in that? No. Every sin is against the sovereignty, holiness, and goodness of God and against His righteous law.
46:25
And God is righteously angry with our sin and will punish them in His just judgment both in this life and in the life to come.
46:35
There's a real cost for rejecting Christ. I know that many of you, if not all of you know this, but there is a real cost to rejecting
46:45
Christ. It reminds me of being on White Avenue on one occasion doing street evangelism.
46:52
And if you've been on White Ave, then you know what this is like. And if you haven't been on White Ave, I invite you to come this
46:59
Thursday. We're going out. But if you've been on White Ave, you know that frequently people will say foolish and uncharitable things about you as a person.
47:10
Usually I can handle that when people say foolish and uncharitable things. Oh, you're an idiot.
47:17
You're a religious zealot. Whatever they have to say. I'm not going to say the worst that I've heard on White Avenue.
47:24
But what is far worse is that at times I've had men and women who approach me and say the most grotesque and vile things about Christ and about God.
47:37
And they take the tracks that have the very words of eternal life and they tear them up and they curse
47:43
God to your face. I remember on one particular occasion as one man did just that and cursed
47:50
God. His sense of righteous, I hope it was righteous, indignation rose up within me.
47:58
I didn't curse him back. But it was as if the Lord gave me words to speak.
48:03
And I looked at him and I quoted Galatians 6 verses 7 and 8. Do not be deceived.
48:10
God will not be mocked. What we reap, that we will sow. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption.
48:19
But the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life. The one who reaps or sows, excuse me, to the flesh, who gives in to the heart of the
48:31
Sanhedrin, who rejects Christ, they will reap corruption and eternal damnation in the lake of fire.
48:42
That is the end of those who reject Christ. The Puritan Thomas Adam, he graphically described the inevitability of God's justice in this way.
48:55
He said, that which a man spits against heaven shall fall back on his own face.
49:04
And this accountability will come for each one who rejects God's beloved Son. Another person has said, and this is an important detail, as we all think about the end of our life, in the choir of life, it is easy to fake the words.
49:20
But someday, each of us will have to sing solo before God. John MacArthur said, we all have to go through the turnstiles and you can only go one at a time.
49:33
And every man and every woman and every child will have to answer for what they did with God's Son.
49:42
Lastly, I want us to see here what I've called the marvelous spectacle. In verses 9 through 12, what will that owner of the vineyard do?
49:54
He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read, and he quotes from Psalm 18, verses 22 to 23, this from the
50:06
Septuagint, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and this was the
50:14
Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people for they perceived that he had told the parable against themselves so they left and went away.
50:28
What I want us to see is this, that God is not only righteous and he's not only just and he will not only punish those who reject his
50:36
Son but God is sovereign and when God sent his
50:41
Son to the vineyard, unlike the man in the parable who thought perhaps his Son might be heard,
50:48
God knew exactly what would happen when he sent Christ to Jerusalem. Not only did he know ahead of time but he decreed ahead of time.
50:58
He ordained it ahead of time. Acts chapter 2 and verse 23 says this, And Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
51:13
In case you wouldn't believe that God himself would ordain the death of Christ, if you're reading the book of Acts sequentially, you'd come to Acts chapter 3.
51:23
There it says in verse 18, But God foretold by the mouth of the prophets that his
51:28
Christ would suffer. He thus fulfilled. And if you weren't then satisfied that God himself is sovereign over the death of Christ on that cross, if you're reading sequentially, you'd come to Acts chapter 4 in verse 38.
51:46
It says, To do whatever God's hand and plan had predestined to take place.
51:53
That God himself predestined Christ to go to that cross and to die. To go to the vineyard and to lay down his life.
52:01
And for what purpose? To lay down his life as a propitiation for sin.
52:08
The thing about that quotation in verse 10 and 11. The quotation of Psalm 118.
52:15
The stone that the builders rejected. If you worked in construction in Israel, you'd know that you were very selective about the cornerstone.
52:26
I go to Home Depot and I'll pick up a piece of lumber. And I look down the lumber. Looks straight enough for the birdhouse
52:32
I'm going to make. I'll take it. But the builders in Christ's day would examine each stone to make sure that every line was straight.
52:43
The cornerstone itself had to be perfect. Here was one who came to his own who was perfect.
52:52
And yet rejected of the people. In verse 11, it was the
52:58
Lord's doing. And it was marvelous in our eyes. Is it marvelous in your eyes that God would have such patience to send his son to a sinful people?
53:11
He sent servant after servant after servant. And they rejected him. And finally he sent his son.
53:18
And his son that to die for us that we might be right with him. Is that marvelous in your eyes?
53:26
It's marvelous certainly in God's eyes. And according to God's plan, God's purpose and plan.
53:34
And dear brothers and sisters, what it means on the other side of that is that we receive mercy.
53:41
I think I've told this story before but I think there's a number of you here that haven't heard it. But a
53:46
Puritan by the name of Thomas Hooker when he was dying, mourners gathered around his bed.
53:53
If I can just say, what a beautiful picture of the church, of a Christian man not dying alone in the hospital room with a golf game on TV but on his deathbed with the saints gathered around him to pray with him and to encourage him and to hold up his arms as he prepares to cross the river to meet with the
54:17
Lord. And one of the people there, they were weeping. And they said,
54:23
Brother, you're going to receive the reward of all of your labors. Thomas Hooker replied back, he said,
54:31
Brother, I'm going to receive mercy. And that is the gospel that all of us have rejected
54:38
Christ at one time or another. And he sent his servants again and again and again.
54:45
And when he sent his own son, we killed him on that cross. That very sin that our forefathers engaged in was the very sin that we acknowledge would be in our hearts too.
54:57
I've said this before, that so many people say if they had a time machine they would want to go back in time and meet
55:02
Christ. I said, I would be terrified to do that. At least pre -redemption shame because I think
55:09
I would be there amongst the crowd shouting crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.
55:17
Brothers and sisters, we are going to receive mercy. And what's wonderful is this, that final picture that not only does he not only does he eject the unfaithful from his vineyard, but he says he will give the vineyard to others that he will save us and he will give us a task and a purpose to do his will in the world and to bear fruit and to reap profits unto the
55:49
God who saved us. Who took a wretched people like us and put us to work in his vineyard.
55:56
I'll finish with this little quote. George Whitefield. If you've never heard of George Whitefield I would recommend you can get a number of good biographies.
56:06
Arnold Dalimore writes a great biography of George Whitefield. One volume and a two volume.
56:12
And George Whitefield once remarked to a colonial pastor. His name was William Tennant. He said,
56:18
Brother Tennant, you are the oldest man amongst us. Do you not rejoice to think that your time is so near at end when you will be called home?
56:28
So speaking to this old man, aren't you excited that heaven is drawing near and you get to go there?
56:34
And Tennant said this, and I think we should say this as well. My business is to live as long as I can and as well as I can and to serve my master as faithfully as I can until he shall think proper to call me home.