A Question Of Authority - [Luke 20]

Let's take our Bibles, please, tonight and turn to Luke chapter 20. You did not come to hear about me or my friends. You came to hear the Word of God, and that's what I want to give you tonight. It's so wonderful that we can look to God's Word so we can take our eyes off of ourselves.

We all, in different shapes and forms, have different problems, and some are very difficult problems, and seemingly there's no way out and what to do. Yet we can go and look to the Lord and see how wonderful Christ is, and we know He has the answers.

Christ’s Authority in a Time of Doubt

And in this particular case, He not only has the answers, but He has a question for those who are questioning Him the wrong way. We're doing parables on Sunday night, and Lord willing, this fall we'll start up a series on Ruth.

I think the ladies just did Ruth at the retreat, and so they should have all the answers down when we get to the book of Ruth. Tonight, the parable that answers the question, what authority, Jesus, do you have?

Why can you say these things? And Jesus will answer that question. Why does Jesus have authority? Very important question, especially in our day today, where people are wondering about the Bible, questioning the Bible.

It's your interpretation, that's what you think, and everybody's got a Bible verse for everything else, but Jesus basically says, I have authority. And He does it in such a way that when we read the passage tonight, and go through it, you're going to say, I love Jesus.

And in this particular case, it's not going to be because He's kind and compassionate towards those who are really needy. Here, it's the case where the false teachers come, and He just fillets them with His words.

And you just think, I love to serve a Savior like that. Not only the Savior who's the Lamb, but the Savior who's the Lion. He just has the answer for everything. He's Jesus, there's no one like Him. Hello.

Your lights are on. Luke chapter 20, verse 1. I'll give you the context in just a moment, but let's just jump right in. It is Passion Week, I will say that. And it came about on one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel.

Remember, that's the real reason He came, is not necessarily to heal, although that was a sub-point. He came to preach the gospel. That the chief priests, listen to this trio, and the scribes and the elders confronted Him.

They'd been wanting to do this for a long time and have done it on occasion. And they spoke, saying to Him, tell us by what authority you are doing these things, or who is the one who gave you this authority?

They were very big into chain of command, credentials. They didn't like paper mills for degrees. And everyone had to be authorized by someone else before they could just get up and begin to teach. And they are basically trying to put Jesus in a corner here, saying, you have no credentials, no rabbi authorized you, no synagogue, no Sanhedrin, no bunch of Sadducees have said, here's our stamp of approval, you are allowed to teach.

And you're going around teaching everywhere. By what authority do you do this? Chief priest did a little research this week. This is the group that might have included Caiaphas and Annas. The scribes, they're mostly Pharisees.

And what do you think scribes did? They wrote, right? What's the Spanish word for to write? Yes, yes. So they're the writers. And elders, these were the heads of all the tribal divisions in the influential families.

This was not like an elder of a church kind of thing. And now these ripples that started early in the ministry of Jesus are turning into tidal waves, tsunamis. There is going to be a collision, and here it comes.

And he says, they said, why are you doing these things? We don't like that at all. And if you go up to Luke 19, verse 45 to 48, it gives us at least one of these things. Why are you doing these things?

Here's at least one thing. And they didn't like this at all. Luke 19, 45, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling. Remember that? He did it earlier in his ministry in John chapter 2.

And now he's back, and there's Passion Week, and he starts driving everyone out of the temple, cleaning house. And it is a circus in the temple area. It's a mixture of the stock market with all the money changing because you had to have the right kind of temple tax to get in, and it couldn't be Canada money when you're going down to Massachusetts.

It had to be American dollars. In this particular case, they had to translate these faraway currencies to the right temple currency and pay them, and, of course, it was 10 to 12 upgrade. And here's the stock market, and then you've got the stockyards in there too.

And the stockyards were, oh, we've got the right kind of Passover lamb for you, and we've got all the right sacrifices, and I know it will cost you. But it's just this bizarre, bizarre going on in there.

Did you get those two words, adjective and noun? A bizarre, bizarre. They're buying and selling, and that half-shekel payment they have to get. Jesus said to them in verse 46 of Luke 19, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer.

Here it is, a house of commerce. My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a robber's den. They're doing all this in the court of the Gentiles. Now the Gentiles can't even come and worship.

They can't come and pray. They can't even get in because all this stuff is going on, and Jesus says it's supposed to be a house of prayer. This is like going to a church expecting a worship service, but finding only bingo being played, but 100 times worse.

Has there ever been bingo played at this church? We have not done bingo yet. Hey, it's all about church growth, the ABCs of Christian growth. Attendance, buildings, and cash. And we could just switch that around here a little bit.

Attendance, bingo, and cash. Pack them in. You come here, we'll give you $5 of chips to start. It's all about the numbers. Of course it's not. Try to think of a fair that you've been to, the Sterling Fair.

How would you like to go to the middle of the Sterling Fair? And right in the very middle there, where they have kind of the most action going on, 7 o 'clock on a Saturday night, we'll get together and have a worship service and have scripture reading and prayer time and preaching.

It's not going to happen. What's the place up there in Maine or New Hampshire right along the beach that's all kinds of merry-go-rounds and everything and rides? Pardon me? That sounds good. That's not what I was thinking about.

But if they have that, you just can't worship in those kind of settings. Pardon me? I'm thinking Hampton Beach. Do they have those things there? Oh, okay, it's a boardwalk. Well, you can't worship at a boardwalk either.

Let's just get back to my notes before I take us farther away from where we're going. We don't want to do that. But if you notice the text there in Luke 19, and it shows you have made the house a robber's den.

It's supposed to be first a prayer of all nations. Now it's a den of thieves. And so what they've done here is if you are a thief, you go out and commit a crime, you quick run back to the temple and say, I'm in the temple, King's X.

I have sanctuary. And they were allowing that to happen. Listen to what one man said. No matter what they did, even grossly violating the sanctity of their own temple, they imagine that their adherence to this temple will protect and shield them from any penalty.

The scholar Garland said, The den is the place where the robbers retreat after having committed their crimes. Jesus indirectly attacks them for allowing the temple to degenerate, listen, into a safe hiding place where people think they will find forgiveness and fellowship with God, no matter how they act on the outside.

Run to God's temple. King's X, no judgment. Sounds like Jeremiah 7 to me. They will come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, We're delivered that you may do all these abominations.

So there's all kinds of stuff going on. Let's go back to Luke chapter 20, verse two. What were these things? He just cleared out the temple again and they didn't like it. What authority did you do that by?

And he spoke, saying to them, I mean, they said to him, Tell us by what authority you're doing these things. Or who is the one who gave you this authority? Luke 20, verse two. We demand an answer. And we run the show around here with the big shots.

And we have authority, by the way, if you haven't noticed. And we want to know what your authority is. Verse three. So beautiful. He answered and said to them, I shall ask you literally a word. I'll ask you a question and you tell me.

I'm going to ask you one little word. Jesus isn't scared. Jesus isn't intimidated. And by the way, is he looking for information? I've got a question. I need some facts. And I don't know. Of course, he's not doing that.

By the way, it's a very common way to teach is asking questions. And so he said, verse four. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Now remember, Jews didn't like to say from God very often.

And so the real question is, is John the Baptist's ministry from God or from men? He's asking them. Now remember, there's all kinds of other people around. And why, and I'm eliciting a response, why would he ask this question?

What is it going to make the Jewish leadership do? Anybody? Pardon me? Hem and haw. Hem and haw. Fume and foam. Good. What else? What's the dilemma that he's putting them into here? What if the answer from God or from heaven?

Wesley? Okay. If he says, if they say John the Baptist's ministry is from men, then the people are going to be mad, right? If he says it's from God, then Jesus is going to say, well, then why didn't you follow him?

Right? True or false? John the Baptist had no authority or credentials granted to him by these same very people. He had no credentials. What a great illustration. In Mark 11, the parallel passage, Jesus says, was the baptism of John from heaven are men?

Present imperative, answer me. Now remember, when Jesus is around a tax gatherer or a sinner or a prostitute, he was kind. He was gracious. He was loving. He ate with them. He loved them. But when he was around false teachers and hypocrites, he blistered them.

Answer me, he said. And Jesus here is staking his authority on John's authority. Do you think God was behind John's mission or not? And so what did they do? Verse 5. They reasoned among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, from God, he will say, then why did you not believe him?

How can we do that? Why didn't you believe John? And by now, John's ministry has grown to tremendous proportions in their mind because John has been a martyr. And so you can see he's almost like this folk hero spiritually, and we can't dog John in front of all these people.

And they're in Christ's trap, and they're going to be in trouble. Verse 6. But if we say from men, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. Only time in the New Testament it says here in Luke, they will stone us down.

They will throw stones down on us. Bob Dunn, what's the Greek word for down? Kata. They will kata stone us, throw us down. Bob's going, whoo, got that one right. It is kata where they would get people down in this pit, and it's not like the TV shows.

Well, let's pick up a little dirt cloud and throw it. They would pick up these huge stones, and there was one big, huge one that would go down right on the person's skull for the coup de grace. They'll throw stones down on us.

It's a word for stone and down. They'll throw stones down on us. Because look at the text in verse 6. They're convinced. They're persuaded. They're always persuaded. It's a settled persuasion. Mark 11 says these Jewish leaders were afraid.

And now verse 7 of Luke 20, and they answered that they did not know where it came from. Don't you want to just say, you're a bunch of cowards. You're a bunch of liars. If truth is truth, tell the truth, come what may.

They're saving face here or trying to. And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Game's over. You forfeited your right to know the answer, and you don't really want to know the real answer anyway because your motives are wrong, so I'm not giving you any more information.

And it's one of the most terrifying judgments of all when God says to a people or a group, I'm just not going to talk to you anymore. Let people alone. Now Jesus gives a parable to match this point. He gives a parable to answer this question about authority.

But before we go to that one, he gives another parable before this one, and it's found in Matthew. So would you go over to Matthew, and we're going to just build on this parable of authority. What kind of authority does Jesus have?

And towards the end of our message tonight, we'll talk about what kind of authority Christ has in your life and what kind of authority does the word have if we have time. But let's look at these parables.

The Two Sons and the Call to Obedience

Matthew chapter 21. So we have how many gospels in the Bible? Four. How many are really similar, or we call them synoptics because they're so similar? Three. And what are those three? Matthew, Mark, Peter.

Good. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they're the synoptic gospels. John is a little bit different. Matter of fact, when Scott read John chapter 1 this morning, the very beginning of that gospel is very different because it gives the genealogy of Christ, the divine genealogy, not the human genealogy.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. But we have three similar gospels, and now we're going to the other gospel that's similar, Matthew, and there's three parables that Jesus tells us here.

And so we'll look at the first one, then we'll go back to the first one in Luke, which is actually the second one, Matthew 21 -28. And he's going to blast them and say, I want your worship from your heart, not just externally.

Verse 28. But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go to work today in the vineyard. And he answered and said, I will, sir, and he did not go. And he came to the second and said the same thing, but he answered and said, I will not yet afterward, regretted it, and went.

Which of the two did the will of his father? Answer, congregation. There's the text right there. They said the latter. He's getting those Jewish leaders to admit this. Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you that the tax gathers and the harlots will get into heaven, or get into the kingdom of God before you.

And they jumped for joy. They sang and danced. No. Now look at how he brings John the Baptist in here. Verse 32. For John came to you in a way of righteousness. He obviously came from heaven, from God.

It's righteous. And you did not believe him. But the tax gathers, do they like tax gathers, by the way? Completely opposite. I mean, this is the dregs of the dregs, the scum of all life, in their view.

And the harlots did believe him. And you seeing this did not even feel remorse afterward. So as to believe him. The first son, I'm your guy, God. I'm going to obey you. We're going to do the right thing.

Everything's straight up. Totally did not obey. The second son, though, looked down at verse 31. Which of the two did the will of his father? They said the latter. Jesus said, truly, I say to you that the tax gathers and the harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you.

That is amazing. Jesus forced them to tell something that would be self-incriminating. Did you see verse 32? For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you, there it is again, you didn't believe him.

You think they were happy about that? No. Now let's go back to Luke chapter 20 so we get it in context. Because the whole thing's building steam. It's like a snowball rolling down a hill. And here it comes to anybody who's going to crush it.

And they're going to become part of the snowball. And that's what's going to happen here. Luke chapter 20 verse 9, the answer to the Christ authority. Kind of a little background of Israel as well. And he began to tell the people this parable.

So he first told the last one about the two sons, now this one. A man planted a vineyard. Stop right there. If you were a Jew and you heard that, what would you start saying? What bells and whistles would go off in your mind?

You hear about a vineyard. You say, we sing songs in synagogue about a vineyard. We have something over the temple. Matter of fact, let's see, I have the information right here. The vineyard connection was so much part of their national consciousness that the very temple in which Jesus was standing sported a richly carved set of grape vines, 70 cubits high, sculpted around the door that led from the porch to the holy place.

When you said vineyard in those days, you would immediately think of one thing and one thing only. And it would be, besides grapes and what grows on them, Israel. Israel. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 5 for a minute.

I just wanted to let you know that if I'm teaching you 2004, a bunch of people who are Westerners and not Easterners and didn't live in the time when I give you the story about the vineyard, you might not get it.

But if I told the story back then and there, you would say, vineyard, Isaiah 5, vineyard, Israel. God treats Israel like a vineyard and it's all over scripture. Jeremiah chapter 2, Psalm chapter 80. It's in a lot of different places.

And look at Isaiah chapter 5, verse 1. Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard. A well-beloved has a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choices fine.

He built a tower in the middle of it, hewed out a wine vat in it. Then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it only produced worthless ones. Oh now, here's the vineyard, people. Oh now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more has there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones? So now let me tell you what I'm going to do for my vineyard.

I'll remove its hedge and it will be consumed. I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it to waste, it will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up.

I will also charge the clouds to rain, no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord, of the host, is the house of what? Israel. When you think of vineyard, you would think of Israel, and that's exactly where it comes from, is Isaiah chapter 5.

Mark's account quotes Isaiah 5 .2. The vineyard is Israel. Now lots of times parables only have maybe one thing that represents another thing. This one has a few more, and we know here this is the vineyard represents Israel.

But let's just keep reading now in the passage of Luke chapter 20, verse 9. A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey for a long time. This was a long-term deal.

It took probably four years to get the plants to grow so you could harvest the grapes and make some money. And so if you were a landowner and you owned lots of land back in those days, first of all, you were really rich to own any land, you would hire people to go ahead and get grapes to do all the dirty work, to watch it and protect it and take care of it.

And then in four years, you would send your folks to get some of the product, some of the produce, some of the fruit. They did that all the time. So that's exactly what happened here. Verse 10. At the harvest time, he sent a slave to the vine growers in order that they might give him some of the produce of the vineyard.

But the vine growers beat him and sent him away empty -handed. Who were the vine growers, by the way, in this story? The priests, the leaders. That's exactly right. And they knew it because Mark chapter 12 says, and that they knew he spoke this parable against them.

So God, in his love and his grace, makes Israel. He hoes around and he puts a tower there. Towers cost a lot of money. They were 15, 20 feet high. Some of the vine growers would live in there and you could use it as a watchtower.

This is a big deal in vats and irrigation and everything else. And so God makes Israel and he says, I'm putting you men in charge. You are the spiritual leaders. You're in charge of Israel. Well, they don't do exactly what God wants.

So he starts sending some prophets. And what does Israel do to the prophets that God sent her? Can you give me any examples? I'll take that as a no. Let's keep going. By the way, Jeremiah chapter 7, Jeremiah chapter 25, talks about prophets as servants.

I've sent my servants, the prophets. And so what happens? Verse 20, verse 11 of chapter 20, and he proceeded to send another slave. They also beat him and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty handed.

And so now God sends the prophets to preach the gospel, to preach repentance. And they say, forget you, beat him up, send him home. Verse 11, he proceeded to send another. They beat him, treated him shamefully, sent him away empty handed.

Treated him shamefully and beat him. The beat him is used only here in one of the places where we get the word to traumatize. It made him black and blue. They wounded him. Mark actually gives them another one.

They sent him another slave and they wounded him in the head. Send him away empty handed. My research, I found Elijah was driven into the wilderness by the monarchy. Isaiah, tradition says, was sawn in half.

When that man got his head sawn off, Mr. Berg over in Iraq, I thought of Isaiah getting sawn in half for the gospel. Zechariah was stoned to death, 2 Chronicles 24. They conspired against him at the command of the king.

They stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord. John the Baptist, what happened to him? Beheaded. Legend says Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Habakkuk were all killed for the sake of the Lord.

God sends him in his grace, in his mercy, in his care. You kill another one, I'll send you another pastor preacher. God's patience increases the enormity of the crime. Verse 12, he proceeded to send out a third.

You could have said, well, he just should have said he sent out one, and they beat him up, and then they sent his son. But God's trying to show, Jesus is trying to show, how he's patient and kind and long-suffering.

And this one they wounded and cast out. And the owner of the vineyard, God, said, what shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. Any idea you want to take a stab in the dark who the beloved son might be?

Luke chapter 3, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. As the dove comes down, inaugurating Christ's public ministry. Transfiguration, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. Verse 14, though, but when the vine growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, this is the heir.

Let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours. It's one thing if you don't know he's the son, but you kill him. But when you know he's the son and still conspire to kill him, then the guilt is even all the more.

We don't want God telling us what to do with our nation. We want to run the nation. Let's kill Jesus. John 11, verse 53, so from that day on, they planned together to kill Jesus. Verse 15, they threw him out of the vineyard and kill him.

We would hate to have somebody killed in the vineyard, because if somebody was killed in the vineyard, and then some water was rained, there was water there, or rain, and some of the water seeped onto the dead man, then onto the vineyard, that would be ceremonially unclean, and we wouldn't want to make our vineyards unclean.

They cast him out of the vineyard and kill him. They wanted Jesus dead. He's upsetting the apple cart, the entire man-made system of religion. He's saying, forget it. Verse 15, what therefore will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

What do you think? What do you think God's going to do? Yes, Luke. Kill them. If you were sitting listening to this parable, would you somehow have a desire in your heart for justice to be done? God's mercy sending one, sending another, sending another, sending his son.

You would sit there and think, justice needs to be done. Somebody has to pay. Verse 16, he will come and destroy these vine growers and will give the vineyard to others, and that's exactly what he did in 70 A .D. and elsewhere.

And when they heard it, they said, may it never be. Now, he's talking not directly to these leaders here. He's talking to the people, but the leaders are right there listening. Luke, I asked the question, what will he do to them?

Do you know what Matthew 21, verse 41 says? It's hard to imagine. They said to him, this is answering Jesus, the people, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.

He's going to destroy the vine growers. He's going to destroy that whole issue, and if there's any doubt at all, here's chapter and verse. Keep reading verse 17. But he looked at them. That's a piercing glance.

He looked at them and said, what then is this that is written? Literally in Mark 12, he says, have you not read the scripture? By the way, it's Passover time, and guess what's sung and read all the time at Passover?

Psalm 118, which is part of the praise psalms, 113 to 118. They just would have read that, and now Jesus says to the elite seminary teachers at Harvard and Princeton and Yale, do you ever read your Bible?

Have you ever read it? It's like at Christmas time going to the leader of Harvard Divinity School and say, have you ever read Luke 1 and the birth of Christ narrative? I mean, he is really blasting them.

And your text, if it's like mine, shows all capitals where there's the Bible quote from the Old Testament. The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone. If you were going to build the temple, build anything with stones, you'd have to pick and choose certain kind of stones.

Oh, that one's no good, that won't fit here, and this one's not good. These religious leaders had tried to pick the right kind of stone to cap off the temple, and they picked the wrong stone. They accidentally on purpose said no to this stone.

It wasn't accidentally. They rejected this stone. Mark says they rejected and discarded him after fully testing the word in Greek signifies. Have you ever read this? The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone.

Turn over to, no, I'll just read it. Mark 12, verse 11. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. That's the rest of Psalm 118. It's marvelous in our eyes? What's all that about?

Bible knowledge commentary says this dramatic reversal of the builder's decision and exaltation of the rejected stone was God's sovereign doing, a remarkable thing. God overrules in amazing ways rebellious humans' attempts to block his purposes.

These leaders of the Jews said no, we don't want that stone, yet God says that's the stone I pick, and the psalmist says that was marvelous in our eyes. Who could do something like that? Verse 18 of Luke 20.

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and the same is true today. But whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And the scribes and the Pharisees, what did they try to do, verse 19?

Tried to lay hands on him that very hour, and they feared the people, for they understood that he spoke this parable against them. Let me give you a few practical things. One, all authority in the Christian life is derived authority.

True, did I say that this morning? All the authority we have is derived authority. But Christ's authority is ultimate. And I was talking to, I think, Bernard today on the way out to the car. There you are.

And does the Bible have authority, by the way? Is the Word of God authoritative? Well, my challenge to you is, would you think of that when people assail the Bible? So many interpretations. That's what the Bible means to you.

It's written by men. A lot of mistakes in the Bible. 5 ,000 different manuscripts. And all these things that make you not trust the Bible, and all of a sudden, if you're not careful, you become on the defensive, and you want to defend the Bible.

Don't you want to defend the authority of Christ, and you want to stick up for him? But even though you might want to do that, my challenge to you is just don't. I usually say something like this, because, first of all, if I say to them, yes, it was written over 1 ,500 years by 40 different men, and it all has the same theme, and it all has the same solution to that theme, sin and the Savior, Christ Jesus, then they'll say, well, that's your own interpretation.