Falling over the Stone

A few years ago, a family living in a beautiful home in West Palm Beach, Florida, told a film crew that it was okay to use the front lawn as a set for filming an episode of a TV show. They knew that cars would be crashing violently in front of the house. While the front yard was being destroyed, the owner of the home was tipped off and called from New York, demanding to know what was happening to his house. It seems that the people living in the house were only tenants who had no right to allow the property to be destroyed while the cameras rolled.

Some awful mistakes can happen when those who are tenants begin acting as if they were owners. The more valuable the prop- erty they occupy, the more responsibility they have to treat it carefully. Can you imagine tenants in a beautiful mansion who refuse to pay rent and who threaten or beat up those whom the owner sends to collect rent? They argue, “We live here; it’s our house now.” No one making that claim would stand a chance in a court of law. The owner has the right to receive rent and to have his property treated rightly.

To follow up the challenge of the Jewish leaders to Jesus about the source of His authority, He tells a parable about some wicked tenants of a vineyard, who had wrongfully assumed owner- ship of that which was not their own. It is one of only three par- ables that occur in all three synoptic gospels (the sower and the mustard seed are the other two). The parable answers the question that the leaders had just asked Jesus: “By what authority are you doing these things?” If God owns the vineyard and Jesus is the Son and rightful heir to it, then He is acting under God’s authority. The Jewish leaders have wrongfully usurped the authority of God, the rightful owner.

Thus the fundamental question that not only these Jewish leaders, but also all who hear the parable, need to answer is, “Who owns the vineyard?” Keeping in mind the answer to that question will determine how we live and respond to God.

Before we read the passage I want to walk you through the cast of the story:

The Owner of the Vineyard = God

The Vineyard = The Place of Blessing and Promise

(Not just Israel BUT the Place where God has chosen to place His people and entrust them with HIs promise and blessing)

The Tenants - Israel and the religious leaders

The Servants = The Prophets

The Son/The Heir of the Owner = Jesus

Main Point of Text = Since God owns the Vineyard, we must live accountably to Him

2 thoughts characterize this parable:

1.RESPONSE

2.REJECTION

This parable is intended to:

1.ENCOURAGE

Don’t take God’s Spoken/Written word for granted

Dont take it lightly

Dont give up in opposition be faithful to owner

2.WARN

Dont harden heart

Dont take God’s mercy lightly

PARABLE one of only three recorded in all three synoptics

Sower and Seed and Mustard seed other two

This Allegory made sense to the people - Absentee Landlord was common

The hearers made sense of it loud and clear - v:19

IN This passage we see:

Our Sin

Listeners (Rel. Leaders) didn't feel they were rejecting God or Word

Yet within a day or two their plot would come into fruition

Do we understand the stat of our own hearts ?

Remember the passage on Christ’s authority …

Our sin is at it’s heart a rejection of the Authority of God

You don’t have Christ when you reject the authority of the Scriptures (As did the tenants)

Christ and the Scriptures speak the same language

Cannot Reject the scriptures without rejecting Christ

The AUTHORITY of Christ is Expressed in His WORD

And what His word Says HE SAYS

To Reject One is to Reject the Other

JC Ryle in Commentary on Luke says … in our hearts … “If we could pull down God from His Throne, we would!”

That’s the nature of our sin … to reject the authority of God.

Will you embrace it?

Our God

Here we see God’s patience … long suffering … forbearance

Pictured in Landlord - Some would say He is naive

ANE landowners often sent their thugs to receive rent

This landlord patiently sends servants

Then finally Sends his Beloved Son … the heir

Jesus is telling you something about the kindness, the patience, the forbearance, the forgiveness of this loving heavenly Father who is the owner of the vineyard, the owner of the land, the only one who has the right to bestow its inheritance.

And why is He telling you that? Because if you have ever or if you do ever come to really realize what your sin is and what it deserves, the last thing that is natural in the world is to want to run to God in that moment, because for the first time you've realized what you are and what you deserve and your temptation, when you think about being in the presence of an all-seeing, all-knowing, holy, heavenly Father, is to run. And Jesus is showing you the kindness, the patience, the forbearance, the forgiveness of God in this passage to encourage you to run to Him when you realize who you are and what you've done and what you deserve. He's showing you God's patience. He's showing you what your God is like.

The Certainty of Final Judgement

So we see our sin in this passage and we see God's patience in this passage, but we also see certain judgment in this passage. Jesus, if you look down at verse 15, after the son is thrown out of the vineyard and killed, asks the question, “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” And the answer He gives is, “He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” Do we understand the certain judgment that Jesus is teaching about? Do we understand that the judgment of God comes on those who reject the Lord and who reject the Gospel? You know there are many, many people today, even in Christian pulpits, who want to assure you that that is not the case, that all will be well. “Peace, peace,” they say. “No one will fall under final judgment.” But Jesus says that judgment is certain. Now I ask you a question. Who are you going to believe? Are you going to believe Jesus or anyone who dares to contradict Him?

Jesus, in His love — notice what He is doing. He is lifting up the veil of the future and He is saying to you, “I want you to see what is going to happen to all those who reject Me and who reject the Gospel.” He does this because He loves us. He shows us what is coming because He knows it is easy to look at this life and think, “I'm going to get by with my sin. I'm going to prosper in my sin. I'm going to be happy in my sin. There are going to be no eternal consequences for my sin.” And so He lifts up the veil of the future and He says, “I want to show you what is going to happen to all who reject Me.” And He does this because of His love and because of His kindness. It is Satan who wants us to be blind to the future consequences of sin and to the certain final judgment of God against all who reject Him. Satan wants us to be blind, so when you hear someone or read someone assuring you that there will be no final consequences for the rejection of God, for the rejection of Christ, for the rejection of the Word of God, for the rejection of the Gospel, you may always be assured that that tongue speaks with a forked tongue. Satan does not want you to see the future certain final judgment. Jesus, who loves you, does want you to see it and He speaks this truth so that we might see that certain judgment and repent of our sins.

The Certainty of Final Victory

But fourth and finally I want you to see the kingdom victory here. At the end of the story, notice first in verse 16 and then in verse 18 that Jesus indicates that the kingdom is going to prevail no matter what these wicked tenants do. If the wicked tenants have rejected the servants and the son, then the field will be taken away from them and it will be given to others. And then we're told in a verse that alludes not only to but to and , “everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

That language comes out of kingdom language in Isaiah and Daniel in which Isaiah and Daniel make it clear that God's kingdom is going to be established.

It's not going to be overthrown. In fact, anyone who rejects it is ultimately going to stumble over it and be crushed by it.

In other words, Jesus is saying the kingdom is going to prevail. In our rejection of the Gospel, what is not at stake is whether God's kingdom will prevail.

What is at stake is whether we will enjoy the inheritance of God's kingdom.

God's kingdom will prevail.

You know it's interesting, I said at the beginning of the message that since the Enlightenment we have gone through a series of waves of unbelief in Western culture. And one of the reactions to those waves of unbelief from within Christian churches has been to say, “You know, the message of Christianity doesn't work anymore. We've got to improve it and update it so that it's more appealing to our culture, so that it's more acceptable to our culture, or else Christianity will cease to exist. We've got to save Christianity because the success of Christianity is at stake and so we've got to change the message so that the church can continue on.” That's never ever the right answer.

The question, as we face the issue of the rejection of the truth in our own time and in our own place by our own hearts, is not whether God's kingdom will prevail.

His kingdom will prevail. The question is, “Will we participate in its inheritance?” And you see why Jesus said these words to His disciples and to crowds that were gathered around Him in the last week of His earthly ministry before His crucifixion. He is dealing with them about heart things. He's asking them to look at their own hearts and recognize their sin, recognize their predicament, recognize their need. He's asking them to look at their God and see what He's like. He is ready to forgive and He is patient. He's asking them to reckon with a certain judgment that is to come and be encouraged by the fact that He is going to build His church and the gates of hell are not going to prevail against it. And His kingdom is going to cover the earth as the water covers the sea.

Jesus told this parable for two main reasons. He wanted to encourage His faithful servants who get beat up and thrown out of the vineyard to keep on being faithful. He owns the vineyard and the main thing is for His servants to bear fruit for Him.

Second, He told it to warn those who wrongly think that they own the vine- yard that they do not. A day of reckoning is coming!

Driving on Exeter road … Your cruise past the Jail and the MTO Office … You Pass the table and Chair Company (You hear their theme song in your head); You motor past the FedEx depot; On your left you pass Amway (so that’s where it is?), Napa auto parts on the Right; You are just keeping up with traffic … u are moving at a comfortable speed: Then you pass a landscape company; When all of a sudden on your right you see the long arm of the law just sitting there waiting for you; Before you realize that it is just a dummy, you hit your brakes because you think that you are accountable.

We need to keep in mind that God is not a dummy—He’s real! Jesus Christ is the rightful heir and owner of the vineyard. Either we submit to Him and serve Him or we will face His certain judgment. If we wrongly start thinking that we own the vineyard, the stone will fall on us and scatter us like dust.