Parable of the Wicked Tenants

with you, please open them to Mark chapter 11 and find your place at verse 27.

Mark chapter 11 verse 27. Last week we looked at verses 12 to 25.

We read all the way to the end of the chapter, but due to time and some other events that happened last week, we had a little bit of a little bit of a interruption last week.

We got a little behind in time, so we weren't able to finish, but everything worked out fine.

And so we're going to pick up now at the place where we left off, but just to remind you of the context, and I know a few of you weren't here, what we have beginning in Mark 11 is we have the final week of Jesus's earthly ministry, his earthly life, and we saw in Mark 11, 1 to 11, the triumphal entry.

We know that happened on Sunday. We call that Palm Sunday because they laid palm branches at his feet.

And then the next day, which would have been Monday, Jesus goes to Jerusalem, because remember the triumphal entry, he goes in, looks at the temple, and leaves.

Well, the next day he goes in again. On his way in, he sees a fig tree. He notices the fig tree is barren.

He curses it. We talked about this last week as to the reason why. And then he goes into the temple, and he cleanses the temple of the money changers and those who are selling and extorting

God's people in the temple. And then he goes out again.

So this leads us to day three. And day three, well, day three began with the

Jesus going back into Jerusalem, passing by the fig tree, which was now withered.

We see this in verses 20 to 25, explaining to them the power of prayer and trust in God.

I talked about that last week. Jesus answered them, have faith in God, and that's a focal point there.

And as I said last week, I think that's tied into the reality that what was happening in Jerusalem, in the temple, was a lack of faith.

And Jesus is showing them what real faith looks like. And now we have them coming into Jerusalem, and in verse 27, they have an interaction with the leaders.

So we're going to read, beginning at verse 27, and we're going to read down to chapter 12, verse 12.

So that is my plan tonight, to look at chapter 11, verse 27, to chapter 12, verse 12.

Verse 27, and they came again to Jerusalem. Again, this is after passing by the fig tree.

And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?

Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority

I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? 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?

But shall we say from man? They were all afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.

So they answered Jesus, we do not know. And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority

I do these things. And he began to speak to them in parables.

Notice the conjunction and there, indicating this is still the same incident, same connection.

Even though we have a chapter break here, we don't have a situation break. It's going right into this.

This parable connects to that statement that Jesus just made. And he began to speak to them in parables.

A man planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.

And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty -handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head, and treated him shamefully.

And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others, some they beat, and some they killed.

He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them saying, they will respect my son.

But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.

And they took him, and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of that vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture?

The stone that the builders rejected, has become the cornerstone. This was the

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 them.

So they left him, and went away. Just a moment. Father, now that I seek to give an understanding of this text,

I pray that you would keep me from error. As always Lord, may you be glorified, may your people be edified, in Jesus name,

Amen. This portion of the text, we find

Jesus disputing with the leaders of Israel, and this will actually take us down through this chapter, and even into the next chapter.

Because this interaction that Jesus has, Mark gives us a longer explanation, and then when we get to chapter 13,

Jesus actually talks about the destruction of Jerusalem that's coming, and his second coming.

We're going to talk about that after the new year, when we come back. So these are, this is the the scene, if you will, of this interaction.

And the latter part of chapter 11, when Jesus is disputing with the leaders, begins with a question from the

Pharisees and the scribes, who say, by what authority are you doing these things?

Well, what things is Jesus doing? Consider this, this is one day following the cleansing of the temple.

So when he says, by what authority are you doing these things? He's asking him, by what authority do you come in here and turn over tables, and make a whip of cords, and drive out money changers?

By what authority do you come in here and think that you have any right to call into question these men who have, by our permission, come in to sell sacrificial animals, and to exchange foreign currency for the currency that's used here in the temple?

By what authority do you think you have to do this? And in our modern vernacular, who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are? Now this ties to something, if you remember, very early in our study of the

Gospel of Mark, one of the first things that people recognized when

Jesus was teaching, was that Jesus taught with a certain peculiar authority.

Remember, they said that. They said, who is this man who teaches with authority?

And if you remember the lesson that I gave at that point, I said there was something about Jesus's messages, there was something about the way he taught, that was different than the teachings of the

Scribes and the Pharisees. The Scribes and the Pharisees would reference the previous teachers.

They would reference the writers of the commentaries and all of these different things.

They would quote other people. Jesus didn't do that. Jesus didn't look for other people upon which to base his authority.

Jesus's authority was inherent, for he was the Son of God. He was

God incarnate. And so Jesus did have a certain air of authority because it was inherent within him.

And so they asked him, by what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority?

Who has authorized you? Well, Jesus said to them,

I will ask you one question. Answer me and I'll tell you by what authority

I do these things. And this is, it's interesting, because Jesus has not shied away from who he truly is in other instances.

He has stated very clearly in their midst who he is. We see this in other Gospels. We've even seen this in the

Gospel of Mark. And yet, they have not believed him. But here's the key to what he just said, because he said,

I will tell you by what authority I do these things. And then he asked this question, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?

Answer me. And this may seem odd, but I want to kind of illustrate this.

John certainly was, it was believed by the people, we see this, that John himself was a prophet.

And Jesus says, where did his authority come from? You didn't authorize him.

You didn't make him a prophet. No one certified John. No one gave him,

I was talking to a man just today, I met a man who's very sweet, kind man, and we had had lunch together.

And he's a member of another church. We were just talking about theology and stuff. And he told me, he says, my church has licensed me to preach.

And I thought that's very interesting. You know, we don't, in the Baptist denomination, that's what happens before ordination.

You get a license from a church, and that allows you to have the authority to go and preach under the authority of that church.

You know, I thought that was interesting. He said he was licensed to preach. Okay, so the church has affirmed you, but you're not yet ordained, right?

You're affirmed to do this thing leading up to what I'm certain will one day be an ordination, right?

So that church licensed that man. Nobody ever licensed John. But there was no question that John was a prophet, because everyone believed

John was a prophet. John had all of the markers of being a prophet.

He was bold in his speech. He said things that were true. He had a lifestyle of absolute holiness.

Everything about him pointed to the fact, and we're going to talk about this Sunday, because Paul is going to say something in 2nd

Corinthians. He's going to say, I didn't come to you with letters of recommendation. You are my letter of recommendation.

What does he mean by that? He says, you are the proof of my ministry, because the church in Corinth wouldn't even exist without me.

I was the one who came and preached the gospel, and therefore, if you want a letter of recommendation, look at yourself.

You are the letter of recommendation, and so too with John. John's ministry spoke for itself.

It didn't have to have a letter. It didn't have to have a certificate. He wasn't ordained by a church, or a

Sanhedrin, or anything else. He was called of God from the very womb.

So John had a unique place that was really unquestioned by the people, but the

Pharisees didn't believe in John. Pharisees didn't believe in John.

So you've got John with a split audience.

You've got the people who affirm John, and you've got the

Pharisees who don't affirm

John, and Jesus knows it. And so when he says,

I'll ask you one question. Answer me, and I'll tell you by what authority I do these things. He's telling the truth, because if they would have answered and said,

John got his authority from God, then Jesus would say, so did I, and if you affirm

John, you have to affirm me, and they know that too, because if you read further in the text, that's exactly what they said.

When he says, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me, and they discussed it. I can just imagine the huddle.

I can imagine the holy, unholy huddle of these Pharisees kind of gathering away from Jesus, saying, okay, how are we going to answer this?

Let's talk it over. They discussed it with one another, saying, if we say he's from heaven, we'll be agreeing with everyone here, but if we agree with everyone here, what did

John say about Jesus? He said he was the

Son of God. He was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom

I am not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandal, right? So we know that affirming him is affirming him, and they know that too.

So they said, we can't affirm what the people believe about John, because in doing so, we'll be affirming what the people should be believing about Jesus, because John was the forerunner of Christ, but if we say his baptism, and that was the key of what he was doing.

He was John the Baptizer, right? Or he was John the Baptist. He was the first Baptist. Did you know

Presbyterians don't call him John the Baptist? They call him John the Baptizer. All my

Presbyterian friends, when I talk to them, they call him John the Baptizer, because again, he was a baptizer, but we say he was the first Baptist.

Just kidding. But his ministry was baptism, and the people have affirmed that his ministry was of God, and if you affirm his ministries of God, you have to affirm

Jesus's ministry is from God, and they know they can't do that. But then again, they said if they don't affirm it, they know that the people are going to be upset, because the people themselves affirm

John. The people themselves affirm John. So Jesus has put them in a pickle.

He's put them in a conundrum, and what we're going to see, and the reason why I know I may be laboring a point that doesn't need to be labored here.

I know you understand it. You can read too, but what's happening with Jesus is they're going to try to turn the tables on Jesus later.

They do it with the paying taxes thing. Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? That's a loaded question, because if he says pay taxes, oh, he's a friend of Caesar.

If he says don't pay taxes, he's an enemy of Caesar. Either way, he can't win. When they ask him about the resurrection, you got the

Pharisees and the Sadducees who debate over the resurrection. You're siding with one or the other. So whose wife shall she be, right?

There's all these questions that are, in essence, trapping questions.

Well, Jesus is asking them this question. Where did John's baptism come from?

And they said to themselves, if we say it's from God, we're agreeing with the people, but then we got to affirm him.

But if we say it's not from God, then the people are going to stone us, because the people believe it's from God.

So what do we do? So they plead the fifth. They said, we don't know where the baptism came from.

And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority

I do these things. Why? Because they're not willing to recognize the authority of John, therefore they're not willing to recognize the authority of Jesus.

No matter what Jesus would have said at that point, it would not have been satisfactory to them.

So Jesus said, if you're not willing to affirm John and unequivocally affirm

John, then you're not willing to, or you're not ready to receive me.

Now, out of this comes our parable. And what's interesting about this parable is, well, there's two things.

One, Mark has very few parables. In fact, if you think of our study, we haven't really had a parable since chapter 4, right?

We've had a lot of incidences in the life of Christ, but not a lot of parabolic teaching, right? Where do most of the parables of Jesus come from?

The John doesn't have any parables, and Mark has very few parables, just because that's the way

God has ordained us to have this information. Well, I don't know what's happening here, but this is annoying.

So anyway, in regard to the Pharisees, or to the parables, a little confusing, sorry.

In regard to the parables, this parable is the first one we've had now in several chapters, and it's the only one in the

Gospels of which I can think of, and maybe you may correct me on this, and I'm willing to be corrected.

I didn't do an extensive study, just by memory. It's the only one I can think of where, when

Jesus gives this parable, it doesn't have a connection to the kingdom.

It doesn't say the kingdom of heaven is like this, but rather it has a connection to the people he's looking at, and it's so easy to interpret that even the unbelieving

Pharisees know exactly what it means. It doesn't have, it's not hard to interpret.

It's not hard to figure out what he's saying. So with that in mind, let's just begin to look at it.

It says, and he began to speak to them in a parable, or in parables. A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

Well, that's, like I like to do with parables, let's break it down by virtue of the characters.

Well, there is the landowner, the master, if you will, and the master has in his, has chose to have a field that he's turning into a vineyard, and he does all of the work to produce the vineyard.

Notice what it says. It says, a man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower.

All of those things are important in the sense that they, this is something that someone does when they care about something.

They're building up this vineyard. So, we have the man who is the landowner, the master.

I would, I don't think anybody would doubt this, but my interpretation is that that is God. All right?

Now, if we wanted to tie into this, in Isaiah chapter 5,

Isaiah has a prophecy where he talks about God planting a vineyard, and in that particular prophecy, it is a, well, it's really a parable prophecy because it tells the story of a vineyard, and instead of producing good fruit, it produces unedible, inedible fruit, fruit that's not fit for eating, and that's a picture of Israel that's not bearing fruit, but rather is doing evil, and this is the parable that leads up to the

Babylonian captivity, because at the end of chapter 5, it's the promise of judgment that this, that this vineyard that's supposed to be producing good fruit is producing bad fruit, and as a result of producing bad fruit, there's six judgments that are given in Isaiah chapter 5, and those six judgments end with the punishment of Israel, and that is being led away into captivity.

So, we, Jesus could, in this parable, be hearkening back to this passage, because if you read both, if you read the story of the man who, who had the vineyard, dug the pit, and all that, it's very similar to the opening of Isaiah chapter 5, digging the pit, making the vineyard, and all that.

So, in that passage, the vineyard is Israel.

So, you have the vineyard, and that's Israel, and I would,

I'm going to be more specific now. I'm going to say God's people. Israel is the vineyard that's not producing fruit.

Israel is the vineyard that's going to go and be punished, and Israel is ultimately the one that's going to be led into captivity, all right?

So, with that in mind, in the Mark parable, we had the landowner, who is

God, we had the vineyard, which is Israel, which is God's people, but then we have another group that's mentioned, and that is the tenants.

Now, the tenants, it says, were leased this property while the master went into another country, okay?

So, who are the tenants? If, if the vineyard represents Israel and God's people, well then, who are the tenants?

I am convinced, and I like the way MacArthur says this, Sproul and MacArthur both are saying the same thing, but Sproul says it's the clergy,

MacArthur says it's the stewards, and I like the word steward because the idea is the people who are managing the people, the people who are in authority, the ones who are in authority.

So, we could say stewards, but we could also, if we agree with the language of Sproul, we could say clergy, because that's the way we would define the

Pharisees, right? We would, we would define them as the religious leaders, or what we call today clergy, and that is the one who is in view, remember that's the one

Jesus was just talking to, that was the one who in chapter 11, who he says, tell me by which authority, and that John did these things, right?

This, that's who he's conversing with, and we see, if you just notice, go down to verse 12, and they were seeking to arrest him for they feared the people, for they perceived that he told the parable against them.

So, they knew who it was about. They knew that the tenants were them, and they weren't wrong.

They weren't, they didn't misinterpret Jesus's words. This is a flat -out, in -your -face attack against what they had done, and I think about this passage, and I don't have the,

I don't have the address on the tip of my tongue, but when Jesus looked at Jerusalem, and he said,

O Jerusalem, you who, who killed the prophets and stolen those who are sent to you, how often

I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her brood, and you were not willing.

In that, people often miss, there's two categories of people. There's the children, and then there's the unwilling leaders, and it's the unwilling leaders who are receiving that rebuke.

He said, I would gather your children, but you are unwilling. Who is the you? It's the leaders who are the you. It's the leaders.

It's, it's these, it's these tenants who have the people in bondage. They have them in bondage in false understanding of the

Old Testament. They have them in bondage in their phase circle trappings. They have them in bondage in their legalistic false piety.

They have them in bondage. Jesus said, You lay burdens on the backs of men that you yourself are not willing to carry.

So the tenants, the stewards, the clergy, whatever we want to call them, they are in this pictured, and Jesus says,

When the season came, he, that is the master, the, the person who represents

God, sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard, and they took him and beat him and sent him away empty -handed.

This happens again in verse 4, and he sent, sent them another servant. They struck him on the head, treated him shamefully.

He sent another. They killed him and so many others. So some they beat, some they killed.

This is a picture, a snapshot, if you will, of how

Israel has treated the prophets that have been sent to her down through the centuries leading up to the time of Christ, and think about Jesus who talks about this when he talked about the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah.

There's a passage where Jesus mentions that, and he's talking about all those righteous men who have been killed by the unrighteous.

All those righteous men from the time of Abel all the way to the time of the last prophet to be killed, which was

Zechariah, right? All down through the ages, and think, I mean, you probably know this, but think about like Jeremiah who was hung, he was suspended in a pit.

Many believe he was stoned. Isaiah and others who suffered, and we see

God's prophets over and over and over again suffering at the hands of the leaders of Israel.

All of them led up to Jesus. Jesus was prophet, priest, and king, greatest of all prophets, greatest of all priests, and the one true and king, and so verse 6 says he sent one more, and that was his son.

Now again, not hard to interpret. This is not a difficult parable.

It's obvious the son is Jesus. He's referring to himself, and here's the thing, if this were just a story, one would have to ask what would cause the master of the property to be so foolish as to send his unarmed son to a pack of people who were already demonstrating themselves to be willing to beat and murder his servants, and so some might take the position that the the master here is demonstrating foolishness, but the master is no fool.

However, in this he does say they will respect my son in the sense that they should.

This is my son. They should respect my son, but they don't.

But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.

I don't know how they come to that conclusion, that all I've got to do is kill the heir and then

I'm automatically the next in line. Maybe they think that by their viciousness that they will somehow force the hand of the master to turn over the deed to the property to them.

Yeah, yeah, perhaps, right? Yeah, Abraham's Eleazar.

Yeah, no, possibly, possibly. They figure if there's no son left, he's got to give it to somebody.

He'll give it to us, and they killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

Obviously a reference to what's going to happen to Christ just a few days later. Christ will be taken out of Jerusalem, suspended between heaven and earth, and killed by the hands of wicked men.

And so Jesus asked the question, what will the owner of the vineyard do?

Now, if you compare this, this parable is also in Matthew's Gospel and in Luke's Gospel.

There is an interesting distinction, because when in verse 9 it says, what will the owner of the vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read the scripture? It jumps right into the passage, which is a quote from Psalm 118.

It jumps right to that, but it doesn't do that in Luke's Gospel. And I just want to read to you the difference.

Luke's chapter 20, verse 15, it says, and they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said, surely not.

You know why they said surely not? Because they realized at that point he's talking about them. At that moment in the parable, they realized they're the object lesson.

They are the evil vinedressers. They're the evil tenants. And they said, no,

God's not going to judge us. That's basically what they're saying. No, because they get it. In their mind, they get it.

Certainly not would God judge us. And that's why he says the next verse in Mark, which again, putting it all together, he says this, have you not read the scripture?

The stones the builder rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is the Lord's doing and it's marvelous in our eyes. What's interesting, that Psalm 118, that Psalm 118, 22 and 23, that would have been one of the

Psalms that was read during the Passover. They would have, that would have been in their mind as part of what they were already studying, reading for that week.

And Jesus uses it, turns it on them, and says the stone, who's the stone?

Jesus. I'm the cornerstone. I am the sun, but I'm also the stone.

And I tell you what, this stone is going to have one of two effects.

It's either going to crush or those who fall on it are going to be crushed as they fall on it.

But no one's going to walk away. No one who, no one who rejects the stone is going to simply walk away.

And I'll read to you, this is from Matthew's account. He says, therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

Harkening back to Isaiah 5. Harkening also back potentially to the fig tree that didn't bear fruit.

We talked about that and the fact that that potentially represented Israel who was not bearing fruit. He says the vineyard is going to be taken away and given to a people producing its fruits and the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone it will crush them.

So Jesus is being very clear. He's saying you are about to have what you have taken away from you and it's going to be given to other tenants.

It's going to be given to someone who will produce fruit. Now that leads to a fifth group and that is the other tenants.

Who are the other tenants? Now this, this is a interesting question because there's some, we could discuss this, we could maybe even debate somewhat of the interpretation of this.

Some would say that the other tenants is the church. However I would,

I would argue against that slightly as if to say the church because I don't, I don't believe the church began to exist in in the new covenant.

I believe the church has always been God's people. I talked about this in my sermon a few weeks ago. But the new covenant church certainly began when the

Spirit fell at Pentecost. So if we were going to say the church we would, we would say that refers to the new covenant church or the

New Testament church. Others might say this is the Apostles because the leaders, the tenants, the clergy are about to be done away with and they will be replaced by apostolic authority.

I think there is some legitimacy to that. Some would say it's the Gentiles and there is an argument to be made that after the cross the gospel went out to the

Gentiles and we see a hardening on Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, right?

So, so, so any one of these there could be an argument made but ultimately the point is that those who had authority are about to lose it and their authority would last a little while.

But when AD 70 comes and we're going to talk about this more in a few weeks when we look at Mark 13 and how the destruction of the temple is going to come, when that comes those tenants will be put away and you realize anymore there are no more

Pharisees. There's no more Sadducees. No one today is able to trace back their roots and put themselves in that position.

That's gone. That is over. And now that which was under one rule or authority has been done away with and replaced with a different authority and as a result they were seeking to arrest him.

Why? Because he just told them your power is coming to an end.

Your stewardship, your management of Israel is coming to an end.

Why? Because you're evil managers. You're evil vinedressers. You have killed the prophets.

You have murdered those God sent to you. You've stoned them.

You've beheaded them. You've put them in pits. I mean think about Hebrews 11.

Remember you read through Hebrews 11 of the faithful and what is it? It has one after the other. People sawn in two.

All references to the prophets of old who suffered under the hands of evil leaders.

Jesus said your time is coming to an end and they knew he was talking about them and therefore they sought to arrest him.

So last it says so they left him and went away.

So this is a reminder that there is a transition coming.

The transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant is taking place in the work of Christ.

And when does the New Covenant be, when is the New Covenant inaugurated? It's inaugurated in Christ's blood.

The night before he went to the cross he held up the bread and the cup. He says this is the cup of my of the blood of the

New Covenant. Right? This bread is my body. This cup is my blood and this is going to be poured out for the sins of many.

And the next day he goes and he cries out to Tel -Astai. It is finished. The Old Covenant is over and the law is fulfilled and Christ has now initiated the

New Covenant. And we are in that covenant and thanks be to God that we are.

So those are my thoughts from tonight's passage. When we pick up next time we'll pick up in verse 13 and see

Jesus interacting with those who would seek to put him into a position of difficulty by asking him questions.

Anyone have any questions from tonight? Yes, sir. I think they wanted the authority of the

Son. And when you when you think of how that would be a competition. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I would say. And in this sense we could say the deed to the

Israel. Israel itself. The power of over Israel. Any other questions or thoughts?

Was that helpful? Hopefully. I'm always hoping that it will be. Well, good.

Well, I want to remind everybody we will be taking the next two weeks off for our Christmas break.

I do hope you all have a wonderful Christmas time with your families and that you are able to enjoy that well.

And don't forget that Sunday evening we have a special event here because we didn't want to do something on Christmas Eve night because a lot of folks have things with their families.

So we're doing ours a week early. We're going to have music. The worship team is providing music for us to sing with and we're going to have some food.

We're gonna have s'mores if it's raining because it does say it may rain. The great thing is we now have one big large room down there that we can fellowship in and we can get those little heat things that allow us to melt the marshmallows and have marshmallows inside and have a good time.

So either way if it's raining please still try to come and bring your families. Bring your young ones, grandchildren, everybody and we'll have a good time.

All right. Hmm? Six o 'clock. Is there anything else I'm forgetting

Andy? All right. Well that's Brother Mike. Would you pray for us? Pray us out. Amen.