THE WICKED TENANTS
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WICKED TENANTS
WICKED TENANTS
Today's theme is a parable about the fundamental human sin that has repeatedly appeared throughout human history. This parable depicts the sinful nature of humans that has recurred in Adam's time, in the era between Adam's sin and the Great Flood, between Noah's time after the flood and the Babel Tower incident, between Israel's salvation and subsequent history, and in the history of the Christian world. Let's examine from verse 33.
“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.
We can find several examples where God created a vineyard for His people, fenced it, and entrusted it to them. The first is when God gave Adam the Garden of Eden and entrusted it to him. He was a God's tenant, but he chose to act as a master rather than a tenant. As a consequence, he was expelled from the Garden of Eden.
The Noah's flood incident is an event where the creation order of Genesis 1 proceeded in reverse order. On the third day of the creation, land appeared from the water, but this land was submerged under water again by the flood. On the second day of the creation, the water was divided into waters above and below the firmament, but these waters came together again into the deluge. The deluge was almost like a partial cancellation of the creation. And a new creation followed it. The previous world was destroyed by water, and Noah and his family settled in a new world. And the command that had been given to Adam was given to Noah again.
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
However, Noah’s descendants disobeyed God's command and built the Tower of Babel to avoid being scattered across the earth. They wanted to exalt their own name rather than God's, and tried to reach heaven through their own strength. Adam had disobeyed the creation command and the world was judged, and now in a new world they received that command again, but humanity ignored this command too. As a result, all humanity was scattered, which is why I'm having so much difficulty communicating with you.
And God chose Abraham, made a covenant with him to make his descendants God's people, and gave them the land of Canaan. Eventually they possessed the land. The cities they acquired were not built by them, and the fields they occupied were not made by them. That land was a vineyard made by God and land that God had fenced. However, they did not live according to God's law, but served false gods. It was a spiritual adultery. Israel was full of injustice and outcries. Eventually they committed the wicked sin offering their children as sacrifices to idols. Prophet Isaiah indicted them like this:
Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
As God said through the mouth of Isaiah, the land was trampled by Babylon. Jerusalem was destroyed and all people of Judah became exiles to Babylon.
I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
The parable that Jesus gave in Matthew 21 is very similar to the indictment that Isaiah gave to Judah.
When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.
They tried to kill Elijah so he escaped to Sinai. They killed Isaiah and imprisoned Jeremiah. Stephen of 1st century church accused them of this:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
They killed the Son of the master, the heir of the vineyard.
Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
They took Jesus outside the vineyard, that is, Jerusalem, and crucified him. When the true ruler, the righteous king appeared, they decided to kill him. They had lived thinking they were righteous and usurped the throne of the king, but when they stood before Jesus, they were exposed as terrible sinners. And they recognized the deserved punishment. They had been living well by ruling themselves, but now that the real king, Jesus, appeared, so they wanted to eliminate him.
The same sin that Eve committed in the Garden of Eden, wanting to be like God, still exists in humanity today. Humanity prefers to rule themselves rather than believe and obey God's word under God's authority.
Now people say they will determine their own gender. They ignore the genders that God created. They also deny the marriage that God created. They say men can marry men and women can marry women. What an insanity it is! Humanity continues to commit the sin of wanting to make their own laws and be their own judges. What's unfortunate is that the church is also complying with this movement. The recently deceased Pope Francisco did so, as did many church leaders who joined this trend. Some pastors tell their congregations, "I apologize for previously preaching that homosexuality is a sin." God's word is being despised, and God's name and God's son are being scorned. They say black as white and white as black. Even now, people dislike keeping God in their minds.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
They cannot endure the truth. So they suppress it.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
They pretend the ignorance of God but they know God. There is no excuse. They hate the glory of God. So they exchanged it with images of mortal man and animals and creeping things. Why they exchange the glory of God with images of mortal beings? Because they hate it and cannot endure the glory of God.
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
So they exchange the truth about God for a lie.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge(dokimazo) God, God gave them up to a debased(adokimos) mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Since the did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind. See what is happening among elites group today! They don’t know who are male and who are female. Even dogs, cat and cows know who are male and female. But they don’t know it. Their intelligence became debased.
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
They are encouraging and forcing each other to do what God has clearly identified as sin. Homosexuality has become a human right, and those who support it are considered virtuous people in their society. We now live in a world where those who follow the thoughts given by this world, rather than those who believe and follow the Bible, are considered virtuous. But the Bible say:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Many church leaders try to attract people by becoming similar to them and changing their teaching similar to the that of the world. This kind of behavior is an act of prostitutes. We can attract God’s chosen people by telling the truth. Many leaders in churches try to make goats to sheep. So, there are a lot of goats in many churches. They are making troubles in the church without ceasing. We preach the word to save Jesus’ sheep not goats. If you preach the true gospel, goats cannot endure it. We cannot add even one soul by becoming like the world. We cannot transform goats to sheep. We don’t know who are sheep and who are goats. But God uses our preaching the gospel for saving his sheep. The gospel is a stumbling block and Jesus is the stumbling rock.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
But to those Jews and Greeks who are called, he is Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom. God’s nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Do not conformed to the world but tell the truth. The sin that Adam and Eve committed still exist among human today.
