The Willingness to Kill Jesus — Carter Conlon

I feel a release this morning to speak one of the messages that I spoke in Ireland. And it was on the first night. It was a word that the Lord very profoundly put in my heart. And it's entitled, Are You Willing to, The Willingness to Kill Jesus?

The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen

The Willingness to Kill Jesus. Mark chapter 12, please, if you go there in the New Testament with me. Now, Father, I thank you, Lord, with all my heart for the touch and strength of the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus Christ, there's no other desire in my heart and in this church, Lord, but to glorify your name and to see your kingdom come in strength and glory and power on the earth and in New York City one more time before you come.

Father, I pray, Lord, that you overshadow my frailty. And Lord God, the thoughts of my mind, let them be in subjection to the thoughts of yours. I ask you to take this word, Lord, and multiply it and feed those that are gathered today who need a word from the living Christ.

Help us to understand these truths and help me, God, to be able to speak them. Father, I thank you for this. With all my heart, I give you praise and glory in Jesus' mighty name. Mark chapter 12, The Willingness to Kill Jesus.

You'll understand the title in a moment. So please don't be afraid of it. And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard and set a hedge about it and digged a place for the wine fat and built a tower and let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country.

Now, of course, we know this is Christ talking about the kingdom that God had determined to set up through his people Israel on the earth. And of course, it has a spiritual application to us as well. And at the season, he sent to the husbandmen a servant that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.

And they caught him and beat him and sent him away empty. And again, he sent unto them another servant. And at him, they cast stones and wounded him in the head and sent him away shamefully handled. And again, he sent another and him they killed and many others beating some and killing some.

Having yet therefore one son is well beloved. He sent him also last unto them saying, they will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, this is the heir, come, let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours.

And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. Now what shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen and give the vineyard unto others. And have you not read this scripture?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Now folks, it's inconceivable that God would have a people in the earth who can become so religiously blind, so hardened in religion really, so stubborn towards the ways of God, that God would send his son and they would actually be willing to kill him.

I want you to think for a moment of the people in the crowd on that day when Jesus Christ was arrested, who stood there and said away with this man, give us Barabbas. We will not have this man to reign over us, crucify him.

Almost inconceivable. If a prophet of God would have walked into the temple in the midst of one of their services as they would be holding them at that time and say, God is going to come to you. The Messiah is coming your way and you're going to take him.

And strangely enough, you will have degenerated to the place in your service to God that there will be a willingness in your heart to put him to death. I think that particular prophet or messenger would be taken to the edge of a hill and be thrown off.

The people, it would be inconceivable just as it is to you and I today. If I asked you today, would you be in that crowd? Would you and I be willing to kill the son of God? What would we do had we been there?

And how does it apply to us as we live today? Now, in order to understand this portion of scripture, we have to go back to Eden where everything began. Now, it was in Eden that man lost the glory of God.

There was a covering, there was a kind of glory of God. There was the weightiness of God was on humankind, Adam and Eve as they and we were created in the image of God and it was the covering of Adam and it set him apart from all of creation.

The Fall, Human Autonomy, and the Loss of Glory

And it was for the express reason that Adam began to think in himself and apart from God that he could be as God. Satan came down into the garden of Eden. Now, if you think that Adam and Eve just ate a pear or an apple from a tree, you've missed the whole point.

It was a theological reasoning that Satan presented to Adam and Eve no matter what kind of a tree their hand touched, there was a theological reasoning behind it. And the theological reasoning, of course, in its darkness was that you can chart your own course that you have within resident within yourself the ability to decide what is good and what is evil.

And not only that, you can be as God. And Satan said to Eve in particular, look at me. Now I'm paraphrasing, but I'm fairly sure that I'm accurate in this. I have done this and look at how nothing has happened to me.

Now, because the scripture says when Eve looked and saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. Now, Satan had a serpent's nature. I don't necessarily think he was in the form of a serpent, but he had a serpent's nature that describes what he was.

As a matter of fact, the scripture says he was one of the more beautiful as it has created beings in the beginning when God created the creation that was around about his throne. And when that seed was planted in humankind that you can be as God and in yourself apart from God, you can know good, you can know evil, and you can be as God himself, the covering was lost.

And suddenly humankind is naked. The glory is gone. That's what set humankind apart, mankind apart to bring glory to God in the earth was gone, it was lost. And man became just as some of the other creatures in the world subject to his fallen nature, subject to now an inner depravity that was sown when he bit into that seed as it is that he could be as God.

And so began the journey of sin and separation from God where mankind in all of its various expressions of religion and human effort even today try to be as God, if not God himself. And you look at all of these religions throughout the world today, the ones that are bereft as it is of truth and the life of God, even some forms of Christian practice are absolutely bankrupt of the truth.

And all this human effort that is into it and all the attempts to be godly and culminating of course, in a worldwide rebellion that will happen potentially even in our generation where humankind will declare itself to be God.

Abraham, the Promise, and Divine Calling

In Genesis chapter 12, God found a man called Abram. And through Abram, he called the people to himself. And he told Abram, he said, get out of the place where you are and go to a land that I'm going to show you.

And he said, I'm gonna bless you there. You know, the inference was, I'm gonna bless you so powerfully. He said to Abram that through you, all of the world is going to be blessed. You're going to be miraculously multiplied.

You're going to be made into something that you could never be in yourself. It's a people through whom God would show himself as the only God. And he would also show all of creation his willingness to be reconciled to his own fallen creation.

And that's what you and I are called to be today. We're not called to be some kind of an organization in the world that moves forward through human reasoning and human effort. For anybody could do that.

You can even add the name of God to it. And still it's propelled by this human fallen, it's propelled by human nature. But God says, no, I'm going to have a people set apart for myself and these will be a miraculous people.

These people realize that the kingdom of heaven does not advance by might nor by power, nor by human reasoning. It's by the spirit of God and by the spirit of God alone. These people will open the scriptures.

And as the apostle Peter said, they will escape the fallen condition of humankind by the promises of God. And by these promises, they'll become partakers of the divine nature. Not humankind in its own effort, but you and I looking into this book and seeing the promises of God that are written in it for us and taking the word of God as a higher truth than anything else that exists in our life.

And trusting that the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ made a way for me, not just to read this book, but to go into this book and for this book to go into me. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, every one of these promises become mine.

Everything written in here is my inheritance in Jesus Christ. He sits at the right hand of God. And according to Ephesians, I am in him at that right hand. Everything he won on the cross is mine. It is now yours.

Supernatural Faith and the Promises of God

We are not a natural people. We're a supernatural people. We read these promises. And for example, Jesus said, have faith in God, for I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he says.

We're sovereign people, a supernatural people who are not trying to be God, not trying to set our own thoughts up on par with the reasonings of God. We're a sovereign people who recognize that our ways are not God's ways and our thoughts are not God's thoughts.

God's ways are higher. God's thoughts are higher. He is God. We are not God. Abraham would learn that human effort could not produce the promise. He'd try as he might. You know the story, he took his wife's handmaiden because he didn't have a son yet.

He was promised all these descendants. He was promised that through him, the whole world was gonna be blessed. Now you and I of course know that that was speaking about the church of Jesus Christ. Through him was going to come the lineage of the Messiah who had come the Messiah and through whom was going to come the church.

It's an obvious conclusion. But Abraham tried to produce and see he succumbed in a sense to that fallen nature and thinking he had to give God a hand, he produced a son called Ishmael, but God said, no, the promise will not come through human effort.

You cannot set your thoughts on par with the thoughts of God. It will not come through any amount of your own effort. And the descendants of Abraham would see that no amount of human religious zeal could free them when they were brought into Egypt and served 430 years of slavery.

No, it would be God himself who would be the initiator and finisher of this work and he would do it through his son, Jesus Christ. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord. After 430 years, the descendants of Abraham through whom the world was supposed to be blessed, being brought into captivity, they were given the instruction to take a lamb without blemish, take its blood and put it on the top of the door and both sides and of course, there would be some of the blood from the top would drip down as well to the threshold.

It was a perfect type of the cross of Jesus Christ where the blood poured out from his brow, from both of his wrists and from the center of his feet that were nailed to that cross. The freedom, the deliverance, the victory, the restoration, everything that God had promised to humankind was going to come through his son, Jesus Christ.

No amount of human effort could have brought these people out of Egypt. No amount of scheming and planning. They were tired, they were weary. I think just as many people are in our generation. They were tired of all the plans that failed, all the schemes, all of the backroom discussions about how we're going to change this moment and bring freedom about.

They were tired of it all. And finally, when the instruction came through an 80 year old man and his 83 year old brother, what a plan for freedom. God's ways are not our ways. Glory to God, can you imagine with me that 430 years over a million and a half people given straw and not even given straw at the final moment and sent out to make bricks so men could build edifices to their own egos.

That's what the blessing of the earth had been relegated to. And finally, God heard the cry. And I think God's heard the cry in our generation. A lot of people just tired of straw and making bricks. They're tired of it.

But there's got to be something more in the Christian life than this. And finally, God into town comes an 80 year old man with a stick in his hand and an 83 year old brother and a one line sermon. And he's so weak, he can't even deliver it himself.

He needs his brother to help him deliver the one line sermon. Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. And something stirred. It was an absolutely insane plan in the natural. This man standing before Pharaoh, but something had to stir in the hearts of the people because the scripture itself bears witness.

Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. When I'm speaking again, even if it looks ridiculous to Adam and all those who are living in a fallen condition, even those who are inside of the house, but they're still governed by their fallen condition.

There still is a people who have a spiritual core in them who can hear the voice of God. And even though it looks impossible, they're just so sick of the straw and they're so sick of the bricks. They're so sick of their lives going nowhere.

They're willing one more time to hear the voice of God and embrace what it is that God speaks. Moses said, take a lamb, slay that lamb and don't do it selflessly. If you've got a neighbor around you that their house is too small to be able to consume, the lamb, bring your neighbor into your house.

This is not just for you, it's for everyone who's called by the name of Christ who can still hear the voice of God and put that blood on the top of the door, the bottom and both sides. It is an absolute type of the cross of Jesus Christ.

The cross of Christ is our victory. The sacrifice of Christ is our right standing in the sight of God. The cross of Christ opens the way for God's Holy Spirit and the promises of God to lift us out of our fallen condition and bring us right back to that which Adam lost through sin in the garden of Eden.

Christ in the Wilderness and the Spiritual Rock

And even after leaving Egypt, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse four, they were given drink sovereignly and supernaturally in the wilderness. And Paul said, then the water came to them out of a rock.

And Paul said, they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. That settles it folks. It's not a conjecture on my part. Christ came to them, Christ was with them. Jesus Christ was following them.

Jesus Christ walked with them through the wilderness and brought them to their desired haven. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 106, they reeled to and fro and they staggered like a drunken man, but suddenly God in his mercy came and brought them to that place that their hearts had always longed for.

Chapter 12, verse one says a certain man planted a vineyard. He set a hedge about it. In other words, he planted them in a certain place in the earth and he put protection around them and he digged a place for provision and he built a tower so they could see and he let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country.

In other words, the people of that season, that time, were to be a people through whom God would glorify his own name on the earth. That's why they were taken to the nation of Israel. A people that would be a supernatural people.

And how much did he have to do to get that through to them? Even at the foot of Mount Sinai, in other places the Lord said to Moses, how long will it be before these people believe me? All the signs, all the wonders, the parting of the Red Sea, raining down bread from heaven that literally fed them and kept them healthy.

The shoes never wore out with all the years of wandering and the clothes never got old. There was miracles abounding every day and then he brought them into a certain place just as he's brought you and I into this place of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The promised land is Christ for you and I. It's the life of Jesus Christ. It's the redemption of Christ. It's the sovereignty of Christ. It's the supernatural work of Christ. This is where we are today.

This is what is our inheritance. And he brought them into the land and basically said the whole world now will know that I'm God. The whole world in a sense that thinks it is God and is bitten into this forbidden fruit of thinking that people can chart their own course, do their own thing and add a whole bunch of religion onto it and somehow think there's no consequence to be suffered and everyone's gonna arrive at this utopian end of eternal bliss.

But God said, no, I'm gonna have a contrast in the earth and the contrast I have is going to prove to all of this hodgepodge of flesh and religion that I am God. And do you understand today that's why you are and I are left on the earth.

That's why there's a church here. We are not to be as others are. We're not to be as those who live in rebellion. We're not to be as those who chart their own course and add a pile of religion to it to try to prove that they're godly.

We're to be a people who sovereignly walk with God, who's supernaturally changed from image to image, Paul says, and glory to glory. As we behold Christ, as we behold this banquet table that he set in front of us, as we read it and believe it, as we go into the prayer closet with thanksgiving and say, God, thank you that I am.

I'm not yet what I'm gonna be tomorrow, but thank you, God, I'm not what I was yesterday. Thank you, Lord, that I'm changing. And I'm asking you, Lord, to make the changes in my life so utterly profound that nobody can stand against it.

Who could say anything about it? God almighty, that's gotta be the cry in the heart of every true child of God. We have the potential to let Christ form his very character within us. It's not of us, it's of him.

But we have the potential just to yield and open our hearts and say, Lord, take my life and make your name a praise in the earth through me. Change me, change the rough edges in my character. Take away my timidity.

Give me a perfect love that casts out fear. Take away my powerlessness and put your power within my life. God, take me where I could never go. Make me what I could never be. Give me what I could never possess.

And I can only promise you one thing. There will be only one name on my lips. There will only be one testimony in my heart. It will be the name of Jesus Christ and the glory of God in my life. And so in chapter 12, this man planted a vineyard and that's the type of you and I today.

And he gave us everything that we need. He gave us protection. He gave us provision. He gave us the ability to see. And technically calls us to be co-laborers with him on this earth in bringing in the harvest of those that are lost into the mercy of God.

The Vineyard, Its Fruit, and the Rejection of God's Messengers

And at a season, verse two, he sent to the husbandman a servant that he might receive from the husbandman the fruit of the vineyard. In other words, he sent a messenger to see to what extent this fruit was being born on the earth.

That's why he sends pastors and evangelists and prophets and such like into the church of Jesus Christ's servants coming to, in a sense, examine and saying, have you brought the fruit of this vineyard into the kingdom of God?

Are you sovereignly walking with God? Have you taken seriously the calling of Christ? Are you reading his word? Are you in prayer? Is faith arising in your heart? Are you letting Christ begin to do exploits through your life that will bring glory to his name?

And the scripture says in verse three, they caught him and beat him and sent him away empty. How horrified the servant must have been to see God's own people returning to their own fallen, their old fallen reasonings and relying again on their own insufficient strength.

And this husbandman or this servant that was sent in his heart must have said, I must warn them how glad they will be to see the ways of God clearly again. How glad they will be to see that God has something so much more than what they've presently settled for.

But the scripture says they caught him and beat him and send him away empty. There's something in the heart of humankind that settles into levels of religion. And when God sends a prophet or God sends even just a godly pastor or any kind of a witness to confront it, there's something in all of us that wanna catch the messenger and just beat him in our heart if nothing else and send him away without bearing any fruit in us.

No, I've decided what is right and what is wrong. I've decided that this practice is okay. I've decided that where I am is sufficient. I'm the arbiter now of what is good and what is evil, what is God and what is not.

You can't challenge me, you can't tell me it's deficient. And it's in every heart. Did the people of God ever think that they would crucify their own Messiah in that generation? No, they only did it because their religion was challenged.

They had settled into various levels of service to God and they were being challenged by Christ to come out of that weakness as it is and come into the strength of God. They had fallen to this old Adamic nature and weren't aware of it.

And so again, this is the Lord sent to them another servant, verse four, and at him they cast stones and wounded him in the head and sent him away shamefully handled. The Lord said, well, perhaps if I reason with them from the scriptures, and he sent prophets like Isaiah who said, come, let us reason together.

And Jeremiah who said, you have no idea what is ahead. You have no idea the trouble that you're going to face. Turn to God with all your heart now while there's still time. But you see, now they cast stones and it's a type to me of truths.

No, I know scripture. You're not the only one that knows God. I know scripture. And so they began to send back a counter reasoning to those that were sent to bring them from this place of weakness and into this strength of Christ.

And the scripture says they were shamefully handled, the messengers of God. In verse five, it says again, he sent another and they killed him and many others beating some and killing some. And that's always the end result of religiousness is a wrath, an anger, a violent resisting of truth.

I've seen this folks. I've seen people get so hardened even in this church that there's a violent resisting of truth in the heart. If it were lawful to harm those challenging them, some people might even do that.

I've known people who've sat in this congregation for 10, 15 years sometimes and have so hardened themselves that none of us can reach them. I don't know. It just happens. It's this gradual progression of saying, I know what is right and I know what is wrong.

And they don't realize that they've fallen to the sin nature that's within every man, every woman, every child. And you and I need to be careful of these things. And now yet verse six, having yet therefore his one son, his well beloved, he sent him also last unto them saying, they will reverence my son.

But those husbandmen said among themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. Now they said, we can reign.

You see, that's what the religious heart will do is if I can just kill this image of God, then I will reign. And we're right back where we started in the garden of Eden that we can be as God. And we can know what is good and what is evil if we can just get rid of this manifested glory of God that is confronting us through his son, Jesus Christ.

Verses eight says, they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. What shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen and give the vineyard to others.

Have you not read the scripture? The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing and is it marvelous in our eyes. Christ is saying, I am the cornerstone of all that God is doing in the earth.

Only that which is built upon Christ will stand. And we can't be built upon our version of Christ. It's upon Christ's version of himself. It's about the truth that he has spoken, not how we want to alter it or make it fit our lifestyle or our thoughts or our behavior.

No, the truth is as he has spoken to it. And he says, this is the way God does things in verse 11. Should this be a surprise to us? Should you and I be a people to whom the truth isn't apparent? Should I be found in the religious crowd today who say we'll not have this man to reign over us?

And folks, I'm telling you, and I say it with a broken heart, in America today, there are many, many, many people meeting in the house of God this morning who will not have Christ reign over them. It's just, it's that simple.

It's not even a debatable thing. You say, well, pastor, how is this possible? Every time I walk in the flesh, even in religious duty, I agree with the crowd who said, give us Barabbas. Now Christ had come to bring deliverance.

Barabbas was a carnal man who sought to bring about deliverance in his own strength and by his own reasoning and with his own plans and his own violence as it was. And the crowd suddenly are divided. You have one Messiah that's all victorious but looks to be conquered.

Choosing Christ Over the Flesh

And another man who's a man of flesh. And every time I walk in the flesh, I agree with the crowd. I agree with those who are crying, give us Barabbas. Give us a ministry of the flesh. Give us that which makes us feel good about ourselves.

Give us that which lets us think our own thoughts, form our own plans, live by our own reasoning and tells us that everything is going to be well. Give us Barabbas. When I look at the calling on my life and I conclude it can't be done.

Now, how many of us have done that from time to time? God forbid that from this day forward, that you should ever utter the words, it can't be done about the calling of God. Who are we to tell God what he can't do?

Who made your mouth? He said to Moses. Who are you trying to tell that I can't speak through you? When I look at this calling and I say it can't be done, I am saying away with this man. I will not have him to reign over me.

I will not have him to reign over my life. You and I think that would never happen. We would never be in that crowd that was willing to kill Jesus. But every time we say, every time we say it can't be done, we are in fact agreeing with them when they said away with this man.

Thank God, I believe with all my heart, there is nothing that God asks you and I to do that he will not supply the strength to do it. There's no where he asks us to go that he will not give us the resources for the journey.

We're not called to be a people who walk in our own strength. Didn't Paul, the apostle say, consider your calling brethren, not many mighty, not many noble, not many of royal decree, not many with natural human reasoning and strength.

But hasn't God chosen the foolish things of the world and things that are nothing and things that are despised to bring everything of this world that thinks it's God without God to an understanding there is only one God.

And he doesn't take a people because they are strong, he takes us because we are weak, because our hearts are open to him and he's willing to pour his life through us and glorify his own name. I thank God that I am not called to glorify the name of Christ.

He chose to glorify his own name through me. When I try to find a way out or through trials in my own strength, I am technically casting Christ out of his own vineyard. His vineyard is a place of supernatural power where God does things in a people that brings his own name to reputation.

Yielding to God's Glory and Calling

There's a song of glory. There's something about these people that is just so other worldly, like in the days of Solomon, where it leaves a traveling queen absolutely breathless because she knows this is sovereign, it is divine.

The glory of God is all around it. I'm not willing to cast him out of my vineyard. I'm willing to believe that he'll take me through fire, through trial, through flood, through sorrow, through triumph, he'll take me through all of it.

That my life will produce something that brings glory to his name. That should be the cry of your heart, folks. Jesus, son of God, glorify your name through me. When I set out even to honor God, without Christ as the life source of all I do, I am ensuring that God will take what I'm called to do and give it to another.

When I set out to honor God, without Christ as my life source, I am ensuring that God will take what I'm called to do and he'll give it to another. What therefore will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandman and give the vineyard unto others.

It's amazing, inconceivable to the people of Israel because they had the history, the promises were there. They were the children of Abraham and they knew it and they knew what God had spoken. Inconceivable that their place could be taken and given to another, but it was taken and it was given to another.

That's why you and I are here today. Now, God's not finished with Israel. I thank God for that. There's going to be an incredible redemption in Israel that will be the blessing of the world, the scripture tells us.

But we're in a season now where you and I are recipients of this incredible grace that was supposed to be theirs. And John chapter one, let me just read it to you. It says, he came unto his own and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. To as many as received him, he gave them the power to become the sons of God.

He gave them the power to come back to that which was lost through sin. He gave them the power to have Christ alive within you and I, born again, not of royal birth, not of nobility, not any amount of human reasoning or human strength, but born again of God.

Christ in us, Paul says, the hope of glory. Christ in me, changing me from image to image and glory to glory. Christ in me, giving me a new heart, a new mind and a new spirit. Christ in me, calling me to travel through my home, my family, my workplace, my community, my city, my town, my state, my country, the world, any part of this world that God calls me to walk in.

Christ in me, the hope of glory. Christ in me, my thoughts. Christ in me, my strength. Christ in me, my hope for the future. Christ in me, my present stability. Christ in me, Christ in me. There's only one prayer left in my heart now, most of the time, Jesus, Son of God, glorify your name through my life.

It was the very prayer that Christ prayed to his Father. He said, Father, glorify thy name. In other words, I reckon myself dead and if I'm gonna live, you're gonna bring me back from the grave. And the scripture says, a voice came from heaven and said, I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.

Persevering in God's Unique Calling

I'll tell you one thing, folks, no one else is taking my place, no one. By the grace of God, I'm 58 years old now and I don't know how long I'm going to live, but I'm not going to retire. No one is taking my place.

That should be the cry of your heart, no one. You are called to do something unique and individual in the earth. God has a plan for your life. You cannot do it on your own. You cannot even see it on your own, but God has a plan to the abandoned heart, to those whose will is yielded to him, to those who have this cry in their heart.

Lord Jesus, glorify your name on the earth through me. You have no idea where that's gonna lead you, where that's gonna take you, but I don't know either. I don't know the full destiny that God has for my life, but I can tell you one thing today, nobody is taking my place, nobody is singing my song.

You will not find me in the crowd that are saying, give me Barabbas, give me reasonings of the flesh, give me power. I will not be standing in that crowd by the grace of God. You will not find me in the crowd that says away with this man, we will not have him to reign over us.