SPEAKER_00: Matthew 21, verse 33 is one of the most incredible and shocking parables of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: To get the full effect of this parable, you have to locate it in his scope of ministry here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in the last week of his life.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be murdered on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: He arrived into Jerusalem the Sunday beforehand when he cleared out the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Monday, he went back to the temple, turned over the money changer tables, and began holding court there.
SPEAKER_00: The temple, remember, was a massive place, roughly the size of RFK Stadium back when that was still a thing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes in there Sunday as things are closing down, comes back in the next day, takes the place over, starts wandering around and holding court, wandering up and down through the bazaars and through the tables that are there.
SPEAKER_00: And the temple is at its highest occupancy, the week of Passover, the very week Jesus shows up.
SPEAKER_00: This is the week people have traveled from all over the Roman Empire to come minister in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the pilgrims come.
SPEAKER_00: This is this week.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus arrives with the masses on Sunday, like I said, and takes the place over on Monday.
SPEAKER_00: On Tuesday, he comes back to the temple and he is met by an angry Sanhedrin.
SPEAKER_00: The Sanhedrin is the group of 70 that are the religious leaders of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The temple falls under their authority and they are not stoked about how things have gone the last few days.
SPEAKER_00: They confront Jesus in the morning and ask him, who exactly told you you could be here?
SPEAKER_00: Show us your papers, kind of speech.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus responds by telling them he will answer their question if they answer his question about John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: Who gave John the Baptist the authority to minister?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, John the Baptist was probably the most popular figure in Israel at the time.
SPEAKER_00: He's been dead.
SPEAKER_00: He was murdered about a year ago before this event.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody loved him and esteemed him.
SPEAKER_00: His popularity only grew in his death.
SPEAKER_00: So as you're reading this exchange, do not picture some docile conversation among academics in a faculty lounge.
SPEAKER_00: Do not picture some kind of even an American-style argument where two people are pushing each other in Starbucks.
SPEAKER_00: You need to picture 10,000 people that have traveled around the world to be there at this day, and 10,000 is a conservative number.
SPEAKER_00: You need to picture Jesus holding court, wandering around while they're following him, pressing in on him and standing on tables to listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then you need to picture 70 people in outlandish black robes, giant hats, ornate, dignified people who are not happy Jesus is there and confront him as the crowd presses in around the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you have ever been to the Middle East or a Middle Eastern bazaar or flea market kind of place, then you maybe have a grid for this.
SPEAKER_00: This is insane, intense, loud, boisterous, not, excuse me, kind sir, what chapter and verse do you have?
SPEAKER_00: But thousands of people clamoring for action.
SPEAKER_00: This is a life and death showdown, and I say that with zero exaggeration.
SPEAKER_00: This ends with them murdering Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this goes.
SPEAKER_00: This is Tuesday of that week.
SPEAKER_00: So everybody is on edge.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, for his part, engages with this through a series of three parables.
SPEAKER_00: On Monday, he does the parable of cursing the fig tree, where he's comparing Israel to a fruitless tree.
SPEAKER_00: They do not bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The implication it should be cut down.
SPEAKER_00: On Tuesday, he compares Israel to the two sons, the story of the two sons.
SPEAKER_00: And Israel is the son that says yes but always does no.
SPEAKER_00: The Gentiles, the implication is say no, but are going to come to faith and eventually say yes.
SPEAKER_00: And then again, this parable here, the parable often called the parable of the bloody vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, this is an insane parable.
SPEAKER_00: Like many of Jesus' parables, they start off with something normal that everybody can relate to, and then they take a violent or a surprising or a radically unexpected turn at the end.
SPEAKER_00: He tells stories like this because it draws the listeners in.
SPEAKER_00: It would be as if I started a story.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I went to Giant last night to buy milk, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: You've all had that experience.
SPEAKER_00: You're relating to the story, you're engaged in it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way Jesus tells stories.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them something they've all experienced, they're all aware of, they've all been here.
SPEAKER_00: And then he turns everything upside down with a shocking twist that people don't know how to respond to.
SPEAKER_00: The other reason he tells stories like this, it's wonderfully effective.
SPEAKER_00: But the other reason is because the hearts of the religious leaders of Israel do not understand these stories.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you grew up in the church, these stories are obvious.
SPEAKER_00: You've had them explained to you before.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time they're hearing it and they don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that back in Matthew chapter 13, that he tells parables so that the they who don't see would be blinded by them.
SPEAKER_00: They that don't hear won't be able to understand them.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they that don't love Jesus won't be able to love these parables.
SPEAKER_00: They won't understand them.
SPEAKER_00: They're a wonderful way of teaching his elect and a wonderful way of blinding those that have not come to faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says he does them.
SPEAKER_00: Because as we read this one, you're gonna read it and think, how in the world do these people not understand what he's talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Because they're just so far gone they cannot see themselves as the villains in any story.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna go through this story two times.
SPEAKER_00: First, the way they all would have heard it, the way the Sanhedrin would have heard it, verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another parable.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, Jesus is often taught parables.
SPEAKER_00: He does that to hide the truth, not to reveal it.
SPEAKER_00: There was a master of a house.
SPEAKER_00: This is curios, the word for Lord, somebody who owns a lot of land.
SPEAKER_00: He planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it.
SPEAKER_00: This would be, first of all, the idea of somebody building a vineyard with a wine press, this is very normal.
SPEAKER_00: Many families have vineyards and wine presses.
SPEAKER_00: A very typical way for Israelites to earn a living to make money is what you do with your lands.
SPEAKER_00: This particular story here is describing a massive vineyard, a very wealthy landowner with a massive enterprise.
SPEAKER_00: So this would not be, you know, that unusual.
SPEAKER_00: I bet every village might have one place like this, or every region might have one or two vineyards of this scope.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's one thing to say they're building a giant in your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: It's another thing to say they're building a Costco in your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: This story here is about the Costco.
SPEAKER_00: You know, again, it's not, you know, front page of the Washington Post kind of news that there's a new Costco going in, but it would be news in your little neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big thing.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what traffic will be like.
SPEAKER_00: That's this kind of vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's got a fence around it.
SPEAKER_00: Most vineyards would not have a fence around it.
SPEAKER_00: A fence is there because the guy has a lot of property.
SPEAKER_00: It's to keep, it's to mark what is his.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if your vineyard is just your own little acre or two, you don't need a fence.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're if you're farming here 20 or 40 acres, you're definitely going to mark it off with a fence.
SPEAKER_00: Part of it keeps animals out, but animals can jump fences and climb around.
SPEAKER_00: It's just you saying, this is mine.
SPEAKER_00: The wine press.
SPEAKER_00: That's another thing that a wealthy person would do.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, families might make a wine press, or what was more common is like 10 families all have their own vineyards, and they go in together on a wine press.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very Jewish thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: But this guy, this is a farm-to-table kind of operation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a one-stop shop, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: It's a massive vineyard with a fence, and in the middle of it is his own wine press.
SPEAKER_00: They're expensive to build.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have, you know, backhoes or front loaders here.
SPEAKER_00: You have slaves with shovels, is what they have.
SPEAKER_00: So to build a wine press is a big operation.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: And then he builds a tower over it.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's massive.
SPEAKER_00: That would be very unusual.
SPEAKER_00: The only vineyards that had towers would be these kind of like 30, 40 acre operations.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal if your vineyard has a tower.
SPEAKER_00: Because again, if you have a couple acres, you don't need a tower.
SPEAKER_00: You need a window in your house, is what you need.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have a massive property, you might build a tower so you can see if your enemies are coming to attack you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you have a tower.
SPEAKER_00: And so this guy builds a tower.
SPEAKER_00: All these details are put here, not to brag on the guy.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fictional story.
SPEAKER_00: This guy doesn't actually exist.
SPEAKER_00: It's a parable.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, the way he tells parables, you're getting drawn in and you've forgotten that it's a parable by the third word, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He puts that detail in there to let you know this is a big-time high dollar, high capital investment.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a small business loan.
SPEAKER_00: This is a massive capital investment on a long-term project from a very wealthy man.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is.
SPEAKER_00: And so people relate to it.
SPEAKER_00: They hear the story, they've got a sense of the scope of it.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And then the guy goes into another country.
SPEAKER_00: Not surprising.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of guy that would have enough cash to build a vineyard like this, nobody would expect him to actually be doing the work, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you have one acre, we would expect you to be mowing your own grass and setting the sprinkler and all that.
SPEAKER_00: If you got 50 acres, nobody expects the farmer with 50 acres to be moving every sprinkler.
SPEAKER_00: He has a staff that does that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: So of course this guy is not going to be the actual farmer.
SPEAKER_00: If you can afford this vineyard, you're not the one picking the grapes.
SPEAKER_00: What are you the one doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, probably you're the one with a second house.
SPEAKER_00: Probably that second house is in Egypt or in Persia.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the places, maybe Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the place the wealthy Jews left Israel under Roman occupation.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them went to Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: That was the most common place for them to go.
SPEAKER_00: Egypt was also under Roman occupation, but it was, they didn't have Herod, the insane guy, slaughtering everybody.
SPEAKER_00: So it was a much happier place for the Jews to live in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself, remember, he fled to Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And so as Jesus is telling the story here, again, everybody relates to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what that would not be unusual.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of guy who makes this kind of vineyard, of course he lives in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he lives in Persia.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he does.
SPEAKER_00: So people are following him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: When the season for fruit drew near, that's about five years away from planting the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Leviticus 19 says you cannot sell the grapes of a new vineyard until the fifth year.
SPEAKER_00: There's reasons for that.
SPEAKER_00: One of them is the squatter's law.
SPEAKER_00: In Israel, if you can occupy land for three years without getting evicted, it's basically yours until the year of Jubilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea behind it.
SPEAKER_00: By making it be five years of a vineyard, it's ensuring that whoever's landed actually is has had adequate time to make a claim to it.
SPEAKER_00: Also, it helps the grapes mature, it's better for the land.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of reasons.
SPEAKER_00: So the Torah, Leviticus 19 says, don't sell the grapes until the fifth year.
SPEAKER_00: This is a parable.
SPEAKER_00: The point is not if these guys were like rigid Torah keepers, but the point is that when verse 34 says, when the time of fruit drew near, you're dealing with a five-year minimum time period here.
SPEAKER_00: That's if all goes well.
SPEAKER_00: Five years later, the landowner is expecting the fruit to be sold, the wine to be sold, and he's expecting some money, and so he comes asking for it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, he doesn't drive his own Mercedes there himself.
SPEAKER_00: He sends his slaves.
SPEAKER_00: It says servants in the SV, but it is the Greek word for slaves.
SPEAKER_00: He sends his slaves to the tenants to get his fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this story is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Jesus told it a few different times, but in the other versions, it makes it clear these slaves arrive one at a time.
SPEAKER_00: He sends slave one, then slave two, then slave three.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the tenants, verse 35, took his servants.
SPEAKER_00: They took the slaves, they beat one, they killed another, and they stoned another.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the shocking twist.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has related to this story until this point.
SPEAKER_00: The guy shows up.
SPEAKER_00: I need the money.
SPEAKER_00: And there was an arrangement earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was wine, maybe it was a Vata wine, maybe it was cash, maybe it was grapes.
SPEAKER_00: It says the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he was supposed to take grapes back.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the point.
SPEAKER_00: The point is he came asking for what was rightfully his lord's, his master's, and he gets beat up for it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me make this more Burke appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of military people come here for f years, and they often buy a house here.
SPEAKER_00: And because it's you know high real estate value, housing prices are above, like if your last post was in North Carolina or in Texas or something.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, housing is way more expensive here.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have enough for down payment or whatever, you buy your house here.
SPEAKER_00: And then from here you go, I don't know, Hawaii or Germany or Bahrain or somewhere where you're not gonna buy a house.
SPEAKER_00: And so what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: You probably rent out your house that was here, you keep it because it increases in value.
SPEAKER_00: One day you'll retire and come back here, not for the property value, but because you love Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: I know.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what you know, where you're in Germany or wherever, North Carolina, you have a friend here from church, he's gonna go collect your rent.
SPEAKER_00: The check doesn't come in on time, he's gonna go check up on the place.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very normal thing to have happen.
SPEAKER_00: Would not be unusual at all.
SPEAKER_00: But your friend goes and knocks on the door looking for the rent check, and he gets beat up.
SPEAKER_00: That would be unusual.
SPEAKER_00: That would be noteworthy.
SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
SPEAKER_00: You would probably call the police, is what you would do.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you would get on a plane, but probably first you would call the police.
SPEAKER_00: What does this guy do?
SPEAKER_00: He sends slave number two.
SPEAKER_00: Slave number two gets murdered.
SPEAKER_00: Not beat up at the front door, but shot and left in the front yard.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he do next?
SPEAKER_00: Sends slave number three.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine being that guy.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes and he gets stoned.
SPEAKER_00: The landowner's throwing rocks at him.
SPEAKER_00: Or sorry, the tenants throwing rocks at him.
SPEAKER_00: It happens over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 36, he keeps sending more slaves, more than the first time.
SPEAKER_00: The first time was three, again, one at a time, but a group of three.
SPEAKER_00: Now is a whole lot of them.
SPEAKER_00: And they did the same to all of them.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning they murdered some of them and stoned some of them and beat up some of them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: This went from a story that you can all relate to to a story you're thinking, what in the wide world is this?
SPEAKER_00: You can almost imagine the crowd getting angry.
SPEAKER_00: What's the Sanhedrin thinking during this story?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, what are they thinking?
SPEAKER_00: If something like that happened in Israel, the Romans would get involved.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Sanhedrin's job to keep that from happening.
SPEAKER_00: It's their job.
SPEAKER_00: If this really happens, this is an indictment on the Sanhedrin for not protecting the rights of the landowner.
SPEAKER_00: The Sanhedrin, they're not who they are because they're charitable, they're who they are because they are politically powerful and influential.
SPEAKER_00: They have money.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can feel them getting antsy.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, as I'm reading the story, I feel the Sanhedrin getting antsy.
SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna say?
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 37, the whole thing goes off the rails.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, They'll respect my son.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's clinically insane, is what that is.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine again the Burke scenario.
SPEAKER_00: You send the first friend from church and he gets beat up, the second friend of church he gets murdered, the third friend from church and he gets stoned, you send six more friends from church and they get beat up, murdered in the stones.
SPEAKER_00: At no point would you say, I know what will fix this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to send my son.
SPEAKER_00: And what do you think is gonna happen to your son if he shows up?
SPEAKER_00: By the way, Mark's gospel has a really funny word in here.
SPEAKER_00: It says he sent his son, and there's you know, apposition like a comma.
SPEAKER_00: It says his beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you would render it, he sent his son the one that he loves.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't send that son, he would be okay with getting murdered.
SPEAKER_00: He sent the son he actually likes.
SPEAKER_00: They'll respect my son.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just like I said, that's insane.
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 38 makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_00: When the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir, let's kill him and have his inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: The son shows up with his life insurance policy hanging out of his pocket practically.
SPEAKER_00: We kill him, there's nobody left for him to send.
SPEAKER_00: We've killed all the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: If we kill the son, it's ours.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is but this is a murderer's thinking here.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way the world actually works, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the way criminals think.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the murderer thinks.
SPEAKER_00: He's killed a bunch of people so far.
SPEAKER_00: Why not keep going?
SPEAKER_00: One more, and then we have the property.
SPEAKER_00: So they took the son, verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: They threw him out of the vineyard and they murdered him.
SPEAKER_00: So now Jesus turns to the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think the owner of the vineyard does when he comes?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think he's gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: This is masterful storytelling by Jesus, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because in an economy of words, this is just a few verses.
SPEAKER_00: And now he directs, it's open mic time.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think this guy's gonna do when he shows up?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody from the crowd, you know, this from, I think it's Luke's version, says somebody from the crowd answers.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna kill him, of course.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when the owner shows up, he's not gonna show up with one more slave.
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna show up with 20 slaves.
SPEAKER_00: When the owner shows up in the in the this world at this time, when the owner gets there, and this is gonna get him there, of course, they murdered his son, he's coming with the army.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming with a hundred Roman soldiers with shields and a centurion leading the charge.
SPEAKER_00: That's who he's coming with.
SPEAKER_00: He's not coming with an eviction notice from the sheriff's department.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming with a whole regiment of the army.
SPEAKER_00: What's he gonna do when he gets there?
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna slaughter them, verse 41 says.
SPEAKER_00: He will put those wretches to a miserable death.
SPEAKER_00: And in Matthew's version, verse 41, is it's plural.
SPEAKER_00: They said to him, so the Sanhedrin is adopting this as their answer.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody in the crowd said it, and the Sanhedrin is like, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Of course they're gonna get slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it will.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, nothing like this has ever happened in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The closest parallel in the Bible is Jezebel murdering Naboth for his vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: But that's I mean, that's so different than this, it's almost not even worth comparing.
SPEAKER_00: This is so outlandish, nothing like this would have happened before.
SPEAKER_00: But of course, the Sanhedrin do not see themselves in this story.
SPEAKER_00: I think a better parable parallel from this from the Old Testament is David and Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he commits adultery with Bathsheba, he murders Uriah and hides it, and months go by, probably eight months or nine months, judging by when the child is born, and Nathan comes to David.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember this?
SPEAKER_00: And tells David Hayes' story.
SPEAKER_00: David, somewhere in Israel, some guy had one sheep that he loved.
SPEAKER_00: Poor dude, just one sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He named a sheep and sang it lullabies at night and it slept with his kids, the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: His neighbor had a thousand sheep, didn't even name them.
SPEAKER_00: He has a friend coming over for dinner and he doesn't want to kill one of his thousand unnamed sheep, so he sneaks into his neighbor's house and steals the sheep with the name that all the kids love, and the kids are crying and he slaughters the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And what should happen, David?
SPEAKER_00: And you remember what David says?
SPEAKER_00: Kill him! I mean, that's an overreaction.
SPEAKER_00: You know, somebody hits your dog because they're on their phone, they kill your dog.
SPEAKER_00: You might initially say, put the dude to death.
SPEAKER_00: But you recognize the capital punishment for running over a dog is probably an overreaction, no matter how much you love the dog, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like.
SPEAKER_00: So Nathan is Nathan, you can picture the arched eyebrow from Nathan, like, really, David, you're gonna kill the guy?
SPEAKER_00: And that's where David's like, he has to repay fourfold, you know, punish him.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Nathan says, in Hebrew, it's a cool phrase, atahaish.
SPEAKER_00: You're the man.
SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful way to end that parable.
SPEAKER_00: You are the man.
SPEAKER_00: He picture him poking him in the chest.
SPEAKER_00: You're the man, David.
SPEAKER_00: That story is about you.
SPEAKER_00: This is that kind of story.
SPEAKER_00: The Sanhedrin don't get that this is about them.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't cross their radar that Jesus is telling them an atahaish story.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: So let's go back in the story and read it again and see what is really happening here.
SPEAKER_00: In verse, back in verse 33, Jesus tells a parable.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he tells these parables to blind them from the truth.
SPEAKER_00: There was a master who planted a vineyard, fence, wine press, tower, least.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hold your finger there, and then I want you to turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I put the cross-references on the screen, but this one is worth it.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth the walk all the way to Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting your work out.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 5 is a very well-known chapter in the Old Testament, known by the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of gives Israel their national identity as the vineyard of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an obscure passage.
SPEAKER_00: This is a well-known passage.
SPEAKER_00: One commentator compared this to Americans.
SPEAKER_00: You know, an American might not know the 13th Amendment or something like that to the Constitution, but most Americans would know the First Amendment.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you probably know the Second Amendment, a commit amendment.
SPEAKER_00: But this is that.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 5 is that.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of passage that every Israelite knows.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with a song from my beloved concerning his vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
SPEAKER_00: He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted in it vines and built a tower in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_00: Hewed a wine vat in it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what you're reading right now is the English translation from the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews in Jesus' lifetime were reading the Greek translation from the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: Would it surprise you that in Matthew 21, when Jesus starts his parable, he starts it by quoting the Greek translation of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: He's quoting scripture to them.
SPEAKER_00: He's not hiding it.
SPEAKER_00: He's just straight up quoting Isaiah 5, verses 1 and 2 to them.
SPEAKER_00: It looks a little bit different than here because we're reading Hebrew to English instead of Hebrew to Greek to English, but it's Jesus is quoting this.
SPEAKER_00: But they missed it.
SPEAKER_00: They missed it because it was a parable and they didn't have their ears tuned into Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so now, inhabitants of Jerusalem, men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: This is Isaiah, God speaking through Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to judge the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: What more could I do for it than I did in it?
SPEAKER_00: That's God asking, what more could I have done for Israel than I did?
SPEAKER_00: I gave them a fence, I protected them, I gave them a border, I gave them a wine press, I gave them for a way to cultivate their lands and to get money.
SPEAKER_00: I gave them a watchtower.
SPEAKER_00: I was protecting them.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is their strong tower.
SPEAKER_00: I did everything.
SPEAKER_00: But God says in verse 4, I looked for grapes and there were no grapes.
SPEAKER_00: There were only wild grapes.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what I'll do to my vineyard, God says.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to remove its fence and it'll be devoured.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to break down its wall and it's going to be trampled on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to lay it waste.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be pruned or hoed.
SPEAKER_00: Briars and thorns are going to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to command the clouds that they don't rain on it.
SPEAKER_00: So this is getting serious.
SPEAKER_00: God says, you're going to get trampled on.
SPEAKER_00: And also I'm telling the clouds, no rain for them.
SPEAKER_00: The vineyard of Yahweh is the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: God looked for justice and behold, bloodshed for righteousness and an outcry.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the whole chapter goes on.
SPEAKER_00: God says the land is unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, 10 acres is not going to grow anything.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12, they have all their instruments, the lyre, the harp, the tambourine, the flute.
SPEAKER_00: They even have wine at their feasts.
SPEAKER_00: But they don't regard Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about that.
SPEAKER_00: These guys who are in the vineyard, Israel, they're gathering the grapes and making wine for them to celebrate as they refuse to give anything to God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God says, My people are going into exile.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kicking them out of the land.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to die of hunger.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to die of thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Sheol has enlarged its appetite.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to hell, God says.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to lose Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to lose rain, fence, protection.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to go to eternal judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's going to happen in them.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes on and on, but we can go back to Matthew 21.
SPEAKER_00: God's going to judge them.
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
SPEAKER_00: So now you're back in verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: That is Isaiah 5, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: Israel is obviously the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: When the season of fruit drew near.
SPEAKER_00: This is a verse that you've heard earlier with the fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Jesus looked for the fig tree on Monday morning of this week, looked for fruit in the fig tree, and there was no fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's spring.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's not figs in the fig tree in spring.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: But it was the season for fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior is there.
SPEAKER_00: Israel is supposed to be producing spiritual fruit by now.
SPEAKER_00: There's none.
SPEAKER_00: It's pathetic.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're going to be judged.
SPEAKER_00: And then God is sending servants to get his fruit.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah, it's obviously the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: God sends servant after servant after servant to Israel to look for spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And not only do they not have any fruit to give God, and spiritual fruit here in Isaiah 5, we didn't go through it all, but Isaiah 5 defines spiritual fruit as justice, mercy, compassion, holiness, integrity, worship.
SPEAKER_00: That's spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have any of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so what do they do with the prophets?
SPEAKER_00: Stone them, kill them?
SPEAKER_00: What did they do to Jeremiah?
SPEAKER_00: They threw him in a pit until he starved to death.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, he was rescued by a government official.
SPEAKER_00: That was an ironic twist.
SPEAKER_00: What did they do to Isaiah?
SPEAKER_00: They saw him in half.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel, they ran out of the country.
SPEAKER_00: Ezra was betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah was killed while he was holding on to the horns of the altar.
SPEAKER_00: This is how all the prophets died.
SPEAKER_00: They all died in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: To the point where, I mean, not every single prophet literally died in Jerusalem, but so many of them did that Jesus developed his own expression.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, if I'm a prophet, does that mean I too am going to die in Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible for a prophet to not die there.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets were continually mistreated.
SPEAKER_00: They were the servants.
SPEAKER_00: So earlier I said, why would the landowner keep sending slave after slave after slave, knowing they're going to be killed?
SPEAKER_00: That's a much more important question now, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Why would God send Jeremiah knowing what they did to Isaiah?
SPEAKER_00: Why would God send Zechariah knowing what they did to the prophets?
SPEAKER_00: Naboth was murdered for a vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah and Elijah were both condemned by the kings.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But God sends messenger after messenger because he loves his vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Peter 3, verse 9 says, The Lord is patient towards you, not wanting any of you to perish.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets didn't always agree with God's assessment of their job, did they?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Jeremiah when he gets drafted by God?
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah says, Yeah, no thanks.
SPEAKER_00: I know how this story ends.
SPEAKER_00: He probably thought he was lucky when he got hurled into a pit.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah even vowed and says, Lord, I promise I'm not going to speak your words any longer.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're only going to kill me.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't keep that vow very long, right?
SPEAKER_00: The word of God was burning inside of his bones.
SPEAKER_00: But they kept killing all the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And how does the story end?
SPEAKER_00: It ends with them sending his son.
SPEAKER_00: They send the son.
SPEAKER_00: God sends his own son.
SPEAKER_00: And the son, by the way, now the phrase in verse 37 is more important.
SPEAKER_00: His only son, his beloved son, is sent.
SPEAKER_00: That word sent is a very theological word.
SPEAKER_00: In a story, it's just the word sent.
SPEAKER_00: But you recognize when it relates to Jesus, it's a theological word that Jesus has been sent from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: There's the doctrine of eternal generation.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is eternally from the Father in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so in time, the Father sends the Son.
SPEAKER_00: The Son doesn't send the Father to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The Son doesn't send the Father to be the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: The Father sends the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Son is from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's even that's packed into the story.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, God sends his son.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, his son comes to his own, but his own doesn't receive him.
SPEAKER_00: John 1 says that.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they kill him.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they kill him?
SPEAKER_00: Because he was a threat to their authority.
SPEAKER_00: They had this great religious system going.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that could mess it up is if God shows up.
SPEAKER_00: They were in charge.
SPEAKER_00: They had no room for Jesus at all.
SPEAKER_00: He was disruptive.
SPEAKER_00: He represented a whole paradigm shift away from their own authority and structure.
SPEAKER_00: Their hats and robes meant nothing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Their schools meant nothing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Their rules.
SPEAKER_00: They had spent hundreds of years developing rules about kosher rules, about what food is clean and unclean, and what the Sabbath is and what you can do in the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of years.
SPEAKER_00: A whole legal and court system has grown up under the Sanhedrin and the rabbis about what constitutes righteousness and what constitutes obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, it's not just that he didn't follow the rules, it's that he dismissed them entirely.
SPEAKER_00: As if they meant nothing to him.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, they're going to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: And their deranged thinking is that if they kill him, they get the kingdom for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's not how it works.
SPEAKER_00: The landowner is going to show up, Jesus says, and kill them all.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to show up.
SPEAKER_00: God is going to come in judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Within three decades of the murder of Jesus, the whole temple is going to be torn down.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is going to say, this is Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: On Wednesday, Jesus is going to say, This whole thing is going down.
SPEAKER_00: Just so you know, there's not going to be two rocks touching each other when we're done here.
SPEAKER_00: They killed the sun thinking they got the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they get the wrath of God unparalleled.
SPEAKER_00: You have to go back to Noah's flood to find the kind of parallel to what God's going to do to this temple.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus says, Have you never read in the scriptures the stone the builders rejected, it became the cornerstone?
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, the cornerstone, it's a massive stone.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most expensive part of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be drugged, you know, a hundred miles.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably from a rock quarry in Jordan or somewhere, ferried across the river, drugged by mules or horses or whatever, into Jerusalem, up the hills to the place.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most expensive part of any building project, is the cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be perfect because it's the you know the basis of how everything else gets built.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine the kind of arguments that the general contractor and the project manager and all that have with the architect and the person who brings the stone in about if it's sufficient or not.
SPEAKER_00: Massive debates.
SPEAKER_00: The full payment's not made until the stone is signed off on.
SPEAKER_00: It's not uncommon for the stone to be rejected.
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, they don't haul it back, they leave it there.
SPEAKER_00: You have to pay for another one.
SPEAKER_00: You get another one, you build the temple just or the house just a little bit off of where the other massive cornerstone is.
SPEAKER_00: To this day, if you go to Israel, to this day, you can go on a tour of the tunnels that go underground where all the temple was destroyed, all the bricks are piled up under there.
SPEAKER_00: The thing was literally taken down.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the tour is a cornerstone that was rejected by the original builders of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Have you never even heard this before?
SPEAKER_00: Now it's funny because he says, Have you never read in the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: And then he quotes Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_00: So this is Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: On Sunday, Jesus went to the temple and all the kids were singing this psalm.
SPEAKER_00: The kids of the religious leaders are singing Psalm 118 to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Two days later, Jesus asks, Have you guys even read it?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people say, Jesus never uses sarcasm.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you do with this.
SPEAKER_00: Nice song.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys know the lyrics?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Jesus says, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people that actually do its fruits.
SPEAKER_00: The one who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you reject the cornerstone, it crushes you.
SPEAKER_00: You reject Jesus, he crushes you.
SPEAKER_00: That's more Isaiah 5 language.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get sent to hell for rejecting Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now at this point, the chief priests and Pharisees heard this and they perceived, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible that we might be the bad guys in this story.
SPEAKER_00: So at that moment, they decided to arrest him, but they couldn't do it then because they feared the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, their resolve is going to be solidified on this day.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna arrest him on Thursday, murder him on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: That's the outcome of the story.
SPEAKER_00: I want to draw your attention to one other phrase before we end this morning, verse 43.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom will be taken away from you.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of the religious leaders and structures of Israel and given to people that produce its fruits.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: They're not the Sanhedrin, they're not rabbis, they're not Pharisees, they don't have the robes and the hats, they don't have any of that.
SPEAKER_00: They are six of them are fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: Eleven of them from Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: One of them a zealot, which is practically an anti-Roman terrorist, one of them a tax collector, a pro-Roman guy shaking down the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: These are, these are, these are not the kind of people that you would give a global movement to, of course, at all.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, who wrote this book, is the tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: You can picture all their ears.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't see the story going in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: They probably heard it before, but now Jesus adds something new.
SPEAKER_00: Also, they're going to lose everything, and I'm going to give it to people that actually can produce fruit in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a side-eye at Matthew over there.
SPEAKER_00: It's less about going from Israel to the Gentiles and more about going from the Old to the New Covenant.
SPEAKER_00: God's rejecting Israel and all of its religious structures to create the church.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament gives way to the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Israel gives way to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrew gives way to Greek.
SPEAKER_00: The law of Moses gives way to the law of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Synagogues give way to churches.
SPEAKER_00: Judah gives way to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The first Advent is completed.
SPEAKER_00: We long for the second Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Pharisees have gone away, replaced with apostles and elders.
SPEAKER_00: Circumcision gives way to baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Passover gives way to communion.
SPEAKER_00: You could make a list of 30 more things that are wrapped up in this declaration right here.
SPEAKER_00: They're cut off.
SPEAKER_00: Not forever, of course.
SPEAKER_00: God will graft the Gentiles in to provoke the Jews to jealousy and they'll be restored.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not for nothing the church becomes predominantly Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: You know, all 12 apostles were Jewish, of course.
SPEAKER_00: After Judas kills himself, I would choose that Paul becomes the 12th apostle who is the apostle to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: That's still 11 to 1.
SPEAKER_00: But think of Acts 2 and how the church starts, filled with Parthinians and Medes and Persians and Cappadocians and Egyptians and Cretans and Arabians and Romans, the whole lot of them is there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the church.
SPEAKER_00: And it explodes in the Gentile world.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where you fit in.
SPEAKER_00: It's your calling to produce spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_00: That's why God chose the church.
SPEAKER_00: So you would go into the world producing spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_00: If he didn't spare the natural branches, how much more do you think he'll judge the grafted in branches if you're not producing spiritual fruit in your life?
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful for the call of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's a call of forgiveness of sins that comes through Christ, but it's a call to be fruitful in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would make our congregation fruitful as we take the gospel to the nations, to our workplaces.
SPEAKER_00: Help us produce fruit in keeping with the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.