Mar 12
31
The Parable Of The Wicked Husbandmen
Matt. 21:33-46
It is a serious mistake for anyone to read this parable and say, “That applies to the Jews. It has no reference to me.” This parable addresses us just as fully as it did the priests and Pharisees to whom it was originally spoken. The message of the parable is obvious. It warns us of the danger of despising gospel privileges. Those who despise the privileges of the gospel are courting the wrath of God! There are three specific lessons to be learned from this parable.
God sovereignly and graciously bestows upon some the opportunities and privileges of public worship which he withholds from others. God chose Israel alone to be his peculiar people. He separated them from all other nations. He counted the Jews to be his vineyard. He planted it, hedged it about, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower in it. God established his worship in Israel alone. He gave his law, his ordinances, his altar, his Word, his prophets, and his manifest presence to no other people. Even so, today God sends his Word to some and withholds it from others as he sees fit (Matt. 11:20-27; Acts 16:6-7). The greatest blessing God can ever bestow upon any people is to establish his Word and his worship in their midst. How thankful men and women ought to be who, in days of spiritual famine, have the privilege of a faithful gospel ministry (Amos 8:11-12).
Yet, multitudes, like the Jews of old, despise the privileges God gives them. God gave Israel his Word; but they mingled with the heathen and learned their works (Psa. 106:35). God sent his prophets to the Jews; but they would not hear them. He showed them the path of righteousness and life; but they chose the way of sin and death. God revealed himself to them in the pillars of cloud and of fire, in the rock, and upon the mercy-seat; but they turned aside to idols. At last, God sent his Son; and they crucified him. But, before condemning their base ingratitude, we ought to ask ourselves – What are we doing with the privileges God has given us? We have his Word. Do we seek to know it? We have his ordinances of divine worship. Do we avail ourselves of them? We have his people in our midst. Do we choose their company?
If we despise the kingdom of God, (his Word, his worship, and his people), it shall be taken from us! Better that we should have meat and drink, or even health and life taken from us than that we should have the Word, worship, and people of God taken from us. But all who despise God’s kingdom are in danger of losing it (Rom. 11:21). As God took the light away from Israel and left that nation in darkness, so he has taken the light of his gospel away from many communities and nations who once possessed it, but came to despise it in time. I wonder how we would react if we knew we were in danger of having the kingdom of God permanently taken from us, our neighbors, our children, and our children’s children. Would that be a matter of great concern to you? If so, read Revelation 2:4 and 5 and lay to heart the warning Christ gives.
Don Fortner
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Mark 12:1-12
Then He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a place for the wine vat and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. 2 Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones,[a] wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated. 5 And again he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some. 6 Therefore still having one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those vinedressers said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.
9 “Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers, and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not even read this Scripture:
‘The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
11 This was the Lord’s doing,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?”[b]
12 And they sought to lay hands on Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them. So they left Him and went away.
The parable we have now read, is one of the very few which are recorded more than once by the Gospel writers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all give it at full length. This three-fold repetition is alone sufficient to point out the importance of its contents.
The parable, no doubt, was specially intended for the Jews to whom it was addressed. But we must not confine its application to them. It contains lessons which should be remembered in all churches of Christ as long as the world stands.
In the first place, the parable shows us the deep corruption of human nature. The conduct of the wicked “farmers” is a vivid representation of man’s dealings with God. It is a faithful picture of the history of the Jewish church. In spite of privileges, such as no nation ever had, in the face of warnings such as no people ever received, the Jews rebelled against God’s lawful authority, refused to give Him His rightful dues, rejected the counsel of His prophets, and at length crucified His only-begotten Son.
It is a no less faithful picture of the history of all the Gentile churches. Called as they were out of heathen darkness by infinite mercy, they have done nothing worthy of the vocation with which they were called. On the contrary, they have allowed false doctrines and wicked practices to spring up rankly among them, and have crucified Christ afresh. It is a mournful fact that in hardness, unbelief, superstition, and self-righteousness–the Christian churches, as a whole, are little better than the Jewish church of our Lord’s time. Both are described with painful correctness in the story of the wicked farmers. In both we may point to countless privileges misused, and countless warnings despised.
Let us often pray that we may thoroughly understand the sinfulness of man’s heart. Few of us, it may be feared, have the least conception of the strength and virulence of the spiritual disease with which we are born. Few entirely realize that “the carnal mind is enmity against God,” and that unconverted human nature, if it had the power, would cast its Maker down from His throne. The behaviour of the farmers before us, whatever we may please to think, is only a picture of what every natural man would do to God, if he only could. To see these things is of great importance. Christ is never fully valued, until sin is clearly seen. We must know the depth and malignity of our disease, in order to appreciate the great Physician.
In the second place, this parable shows us the amazing patience of God. The conduct of the “owner of the vineyard” is a vivid representation of God’s dealings with man. It is a faithful picture of His merciful dealings with the Jewish church. Prophet after prophet was sent to warn Israel of his danger. Message after message was repeatedly sent, notwithstanding insults and injuries heaped on the messengers.
It is a no less faithful picture of His gracious treatment of the Gentile churches. For eighteen hundred years He has suffered their hurtful manners. They have repeatedly tried Him by false doctrines, superstitions, and contempt of His word, Yet He has repeatedly granted them seasons of refreshing, raised up for them holy ministers and mighty reformers, and not cut them off, notwithstanding all their persecutions. The churches of Christ have no right to boast. They are debtors to God for innumerable mercies, no less than the Jews were in our Lord’s time. They have not been dealt with according to their sins, nor rewarded according to their iniquities.
We should learn to be more thankful for God’s mercy. We have probably little idea of the extent of our obligations to it, and of the number of gracious messages which the Lord of the vineyard is constantly sending to our souls.
In the last place, this parable shows us the severity of God’s judgments when they fall on obstinate sinners. The punishment of the wicked farmers is a vivid representation of God’s final dealings with such as go on still in wickedness. At the time when our Lord spoke this parable, it was a prophetical picture of the approaching ruin of the Jewish church and nation. The vineyard of the Lord in the land of Israel, was about to be taken from its unfaithful tenants. Jerusalem was to be destroyed. The temple was to be burned. The Jews were to be scattered over the earth.
At the present time, it may be feared, it is a mournful picture of things yet to come on the Gentile churches in the latter days. The judgments of God will yet fall on unbelieving Christians, as they fell on unbelieving Jews. The solemn warning of Paul to the Romans will yet receive an accomplishment–“If you continue not in God’s goodness, you also shall be cut off.” (Rom. 11:22.)
We must never flatter ourselves that God cannot be angry. He is indeed a God of infinite grace and compassion. But it is also written, that He is “a consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:29.) His spirit will not always strive with men. (Gen. 6:3.) There will be a day when His patience will come to an end, and when He will arise to dreadfully judge the earth. Happy will they be who are found hidden in the ark, in the day of the Lord’s anger! Of all wrath, none can be conceived so dreadful as “the wrath of the Lamb.” The man on whom the “stone cut out without hands” falls at His second coming, will indeed be crushed to powder. (Dan. 2:34, 35.)
Do we know these things, and do we live up to our knowledge? The chief priests and elders, we are told, “perceived that this parable was spoken against them.” But they were too proud to repent, and too hardened to turn from their sins. Let us beware of doing likewise.-(extract from)J.C. Ryle.
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“And shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him?” Luke 18:7
“Behold, he prays,” was the word of the Lord to Ananias to convince him that that dreaded persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, had been quickened by the Spirit. And what a mercy it is for the quickened soul that the blessed Spirit thus helps his sinking, trembling spirit, puts life and energy into his cries and sighs, holds him up and keeps him steadfast at the throne, and thus enables him to persevere with his earnest suings for mercy, mingles faith with his petitions, and himself most graciously and kindly intercedes within him and for him with groanings which cannot be uttered. This is “praying with the spirit” (1 Cor. 14:15) and “in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20). This is pouring out the heart before God (Psalm 62:8), pouring out the soul before the Lord (1 Sam. 1:15); and by this free discharge of the contents of an almost bursting heart, sensible relief is given to the burdened spirit.
By this special mark, the convictions of a quickened soul are distinguished from the pangs of guilt and remorse which are sometimes aroused in the natural conscience. Cain said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear,” but there was neither repentance nor prayer in his heart; for “he went out from the presence of the Lord “–the very presence which the living soul is seeking to reach and be found in, and into which the Spirit brings him (Eph. 2:18).
Saul was “sore distressed,” when God answered him, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,” but he goes to the witch of Endor, and in the end falls upon his own sword. Judas repented of his accursed treachery, but went and hanged himself. No prayer, no supplication was in either of their hearts. So it is prophesied that men shall gnaw their tongues for pain, and yet shall blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and not repent of their deeds (Rev. 16:10, 11). But the elect cry day and night unto God; and their prayers, perfumed with the incense of their all-prevailing Intercessor at the right hand of the Father, enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. J.C.Philpot.
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