The Parable of the Murdered Son B

As soon as they understand the story, instead of falling down in conviction and fear, fear only the loss of their control of the kingdom, only the loss of their power. They're afraid the people are going to follow Jesus, come after them, and He is going to take over. It is the nature of sinners to protect their domain. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Throughout history, rulers frequently have maintained their power by brutal means. For example, Herod the Great not only killed members of his own family, he also ordered wide-scale infanticide to protect his rule from potential threat. Well, it's one thing for godless kings to act so wickedly, to kill people, to preserve their power.

But realize this, even the religious elite in first-century Israel resorted to murder to put down what they saw as a threat to their authority. Today's lesson will shed light on that truth in a powerful way. Stay here as John MacArthur looks at the famous, but often misunderstood, parable of the murdered son. It's part of John's continuing study titled Stories with Purpose. And now with a lesson, here's John. Many people think that parables were designed by Jesus to make things clear.

That's not the case. Parables were designed by Jesus to make things obscure. And for the most part then, they did not understand the parables. That was the whole point of the parables. There is, however, a parable that they did understand. It is, in that sense, a rare and unique parable, and it's found in Mark chapter 12. So, I want you to go to this parable. Let's look at the parable first of all, and then we'll look at the interpretation.

He began to speak to them in parables. Who are the tenant farmers? Who are the vine-growers, the georgoi? They are the religious leaders that He's talking to.

And not only those that He's talking to, but all the ones that came before them. The leaders of the nation. Stewards of God's possessions, the people. Stewards of God's revelation, the truth.

What is the long journey? The long journey is the Old Testament history. God puts Israel in the land, establishes them in the land, gives them His law at the time of Moses and Joshua.

They're placed in the land. God gives them Scripture, covenants, all that they need, the whole sacrificial system. Everything is laid out for them, and He puts the stewardship of that in the leaders of the nation, in the priests, in the rulers. What is harvest time? What does the harvest refer to in verse 2? It's the appropriate season when God should expect a spiritual harvest.

God should come back periodically and expect a spiritual harvest. But as Isaiah said, when God came back, there was nothing but sour berries. And who are the slaves that He sent? Who are the slaves that He sent? Old Testament prophets, preachers. Sometimes they were priests as well, but they were the faithful preachers who preached the message of God.

That would be from Moses to John the Baptist, all of them. Those slaves that are sent from God to call the people back to Him, to call the people to produce righteous fruit. And what was the mistreatment of these preachers, the nation Israel? What did they do with the prophets?

Beat them, treated them shamefully, wounded them, killed them, threw them out. The history of Israel is told to them in this story. Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Trifo accuses the Jews of having sawn Isaiah in half. Now, there is a reference in Hebrews 11, 37 to righteous preachers being sawn in half. Jeremiah, that faithful preacher who also warned about the judgment of God in the Babylonian captivity, was constantly mistreated, abused endlessly, thrown into a pit, and tradition says he was stoned to death. Ezekiel, murdered by an Israelite that he rebuked with a righteous rebuke.

Amos had to run for his life. Zechariah the priest in 2 Chronicles 24 was rejected and chased into the temple where he thought he could be safe, and they stoned him to death in the temple. Micaiah the prophet was constantly hit in the face by the leading false prophet, as 1 Kings 22 records it. This is the history of the Jewish treatment of the messengers of God. Go for a minute to Jeremiah. The prophets recognized this for what it was.

Jeremiah chapter 7, Jeremiah being one of the mistreated prophets. Well, I guess we could read verse 23. The Lord is speaking. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, verse 21. Pick it up in verse 23. But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice and I will be your God, you will be My people.

You'll walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you. This on the brink of judgment. He's telling them, be obedient. Yet they did not obey, verse 24, or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels, and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants, the prophets, daily rising early and sending them.

Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did more evil than their fathers. They got worse and worse and worse and worse in rejecting and abusing the messengers of God. Go to the 25th chapter of Jeremiah. Again, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah in verse 4 of chapter 25. The Lord has sent to you all His servants, the prophets, again and again.

That's what rising early and sending means, again and again, day after day, time after time. You have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear, saying, here's what the prophet said, Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the land which the Lord has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever. And do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to Me, declares the Lord, in order that you might provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send, take all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, My servant, and bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing and an everlasting desolation.

And I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and normal course of grain work and the light of the lamp. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years, because they rejected the prophets. Turn to Matthew 23, the same week that our Lord gave this parable, not too many hours after He gave that parable. He addressed the leaders of Israel in Matthew 23, and He pronounced curses on them, woe, woe, woe, woe, just as Isaiah does in Isaiah 5. First the judgment parable comes about the vineyard, and then a series of woe, woe, woe, woe, all through Isaiah 5, and then the fierce judgment at the end. Well, the Lord does that as well here, having already given the parable of the vineyard. He now pronounces the woes, starting in verse 13 of 23, but I want you just to go down to verse 29.

Here's the ultimate woe. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You build the tombs of the prophets, adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

We wouldn't have done what they did. So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell?

You're doing the same thing. Verse 37, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. That's how He identifies them. He even says that, upon you, verse 35, will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. They knew their history.

They knew it very well. When Stephen preaches that great sermon in Acts chapter 7, it's worth noting, again, he brings that indictment out. Verse 51, you men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in your heart and ears and are always resisting the Holy Spirit, you're doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? Which one did they not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. They killed the ones who announced the righteous one, and you are the murderer of the righteous one. They killed the prophets who announced His coming. You killed Him when He came. It is a stunning and unmistakable indictment. Now go back to Mark 12.

That was just to give you context for the fact that they would know their history. So it dawns on them what this is about, but who is the Son? Well, the Son is obviously Jesus Christ who claimed to be the Son of God, and He's not just a son. God says, this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. This is My beloved Son.

Listen to Him. And this is the only Son God has. That's why it says there was only one more to send in verse 6, a beloved Son. Maybe they will reverence Him and trepo. Maybe they will respect Him.

Maybe there's a reasonable expectation that when God sends His own Son, this behavior will change. But no, they say, this is the heir. He's trying to take over the vineyard. He's going to take over our power and our place. By the way, that is exactly what the high priest said.

If we don't kill Him, He's going to take over our place and our power and our nation. Through this story, Jesus tells His own murderers they're going to kill Him. They had been plotting it.

Look at verse 7. Before He ever came, when they knew that He was coming, let us kill Him. Or they knew He was near arriving, let us kill Him. They had been plotting that for a long time. They knew that.

How could they not know that was them? Since they knew Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, they condemned Him for saying He was the Son of God. They knew He was the Son in the story.

They knew they had been planning to kill Him all along. And on Friday, verse 8, they took Him and killed Him, threw Him out of the vineyard. They crucified Him outside the city.

So what will the owner of the vineyard do? Well, all they had to remember was what the owner of the vineyard did in Isaiah 5. He brought about a condemnation of woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe.

Read it in chapter 5. And exactly what Jesus did in Matthew 23, woe, woe, woe, woe. Damn you, damn you, condemn you, condemn you. And then the judgment came in the Babylonian hordes. And the judgment will come here in 70 A.D. at the hands of the Romans who massacre hundreds of thousands of Jews, throw their dead bodies over the wall, go on in the next few years to destroy 985 villages in the land of Israel and bring an end to the stewardship of the leaders of Israel over that nation.

Such action will not go unpunished. They say that. They say in verse 9, He will come and destroy the vine growers and give the vineyard to others. Somebody else is going to be in charge of the vineyard. It's unmistakable. They just declared that the right thing to do to people who do that is to judge them.

And if it's wrong to do that when you're dealing with grapes, how wrong is it to do that when you're dealing with eternal and spiritual verities from the lesser to the far greater? Titus Vespasian led the Roman hordes in 70 A.D., and they swept in after four years of siege, quelling the Jewish rebellion, and they brought such devastation that the temple has never been rebuilt. That's 2,000 years ago. It's never been rebuilt. There are no priests in Judaism today. There is no priesthood. There are no records left, so no one can trace his lineage to any tribe.

So no one knows who is a Levite, who is not, who's in the line of Aaron or anybody else. There are no Sadducees. There are no Pharisees. There are no priests. There are no chief priests.

The system was devastated and totally destroyed. That's exactly what they said should happen to somebody who did that to a vineyard. How about the people of God's own possession, the apple of His eye? What about the others? They said, You'll give it to others. Who are the others?

This is the final insult. Who are the others? In the Matthew 21 account of this parable, Jesus says, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, shall be taken from you, and given to a people bringing forth the fruit of it, who will make it flourish and give back to the owner what he is due. Who are the new stewards? The vineyard is the people of God.

The vineyard is the people of God. But who are the stewards? Shocking. Who are the custodians of the kingdom? Who are the new rulers in the kingdom? Who are the new lords, if you will, with a small l, over God's people?

Answer? Shocking. The apostles. Those ragtag Galileans.

None of them from the religious establishment. The people of God are the vineyard. But the stewards of the vineyard, the stewardship comes out of the hands of these apostate Jewish leaders and into the hands of the most unlikely group of ordinary men. And the next night, Thursday night, our Lord tells them that they will be able to discharge this stewardship because the Holy Spirit will come and lead them into all truth.

And He tells them they'll be inspired to write, and they were inspired to write. And they and their associates wrote the New Testament. And so now, we as a church come together like the early church in Acts 2 to study the apostles' doctrine. That's what's in the New Testament.

They are the new stewards of the kingdom, the stewards of the kingdom. The divine stewardship, preservation of the people of God, expansion of the people of God, growth of the people of God, the expression of God's will through divine revelation will pass to the first followers of Jesus, by the way, who also suffered the same fate as the prophets, murdered, martyred, and exiled, but not until they had completed the New Testament. The stewardship of the truth is taken away from the leaders of Israel.

The whole system is crushed into oblivion and doesn't exist today. And Jesus the next night in the upper room, we're going to get to that in John, tremendous passage, 13 through 16 and 17, promises to His apostles, 11 of them, minus Judas, everything they need to become the stewards of the people of God, the stewards of the kingdom, the stewards of what becomes the church made up of Jew and Gentile. But even the people of God in the Old Testament was Jew and Gentile. It was the people of Israel, but it was only the believing remnant who were the real people of God, and there was plenty of call for Gentile proselytes to Judaism. In fact, do you remember that Israel was to be a witness nation, a testimony nation, an evangelistic nation, a missionary nation to reach the nations? God always intended to have a people made up of Jew and Gentile, and now He does in the church, and the stewards of that church are the early apostles. That stewardship passes from the early apostles through their word to every faithful preacher of the Word of God, and those faithful preachers are used by God to bring forth the fruit.

Now, this is too clear for them to miss, too clear. They understood He was talking about them, and at first they said, yeah, yeah, that's what He deserves, and then whoa, whoa, whoa. Jesus closes this little dialogue in verses 10 and 11. He's done with this agrarian illustration, and now He's going to turn to Scripture. Since they understand the parable, let's turn to prophecy. Have you not even read this Scripture?

Have you not even read the Scripture? Can't you see yourself in Psalm 118? He quotes the Hallel, Psalm 118, the last psalm in the Hallel. The last psalm in the Hallel was sung at Passover, and this is Passover week. So these psalms are in their minds. In fact, on Monday when Jesus came into the city, they all shouted, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. That's from Psalm 118. So while you're thinking about Psalm 118, have you never read that 118, verses 22 and 23 says, the stone which the builders rejected becomes the chief cornerstone? Don't you see yourself? You're singing the Hallel at this time of year particularly. It is messianic because it said, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord, and they all know the stone is Messiah.

Don't you understand? Haven't you even read that you are doing what the prophecy said would be done? You are rejecting the stone, and you read there that the stone that the builders rejected becomes the chief cornerstone.

What does that indicate? Resurrection. Not only resurrection, but ascension and coronation. And Psalm 118 also says, this is not human. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Have you somehow failed to grasp the very psalm you're now expressing that says God is going to do a marvelous thing?

The architects and builders of His nation are going to reject the Messiah, who will then rise from the dead to become the cornerstone of His new edifice, the church. Incredible. They know exactly who He's talking about. What's their response? Verse 12, they're seeking to seize Him. What a darkness they're in, huh?

Can't possibly get out of it, which vindicates the judgment that had already been pronounced on them. But they feared the people. They didn't fear the right person. Who should they fear? God. Don't fear those who destroy the body, but fear the one who destroys both body and soul in hell. So they left Him and went away.

Oh, you say, cool their heels? No. Verse 13, they went and found the Pharisees and Herodians to devise a trap to catch Him. Nothing changed.

Nothing changed. Jesus said this, you're either for Me or against Me. No middle ground, no middle ground. The truth revealed in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ is unmistakable, undeniable. What are you going to do with Jesus Christ?

That's the question. We've been asking that question all through John, haven't we? Since He is the Son of God, since He is the cornerstone, since the apostles and associates of the apostles are the stewards of the kingdom, and they have given us God's revelation in the New Testament, this is the truth from the stewards that God appointed to steward His kingdom and His people.

We have this truth. You must respond to Christ. You have responded to Christ already one way or another. Don't walk away in this terrifying darkness of judgment such as these leaders who as soon as they understand the story, instead of falling down in conviction and fear, fear only the loss of their control of the kingdom, only the loss of their power. They're afraid the people are going to follow Jesus, come after them, and He is going to take over. It is the nature of sinners to protect their domain.

That's foolish. It will be destroyed in judgment. Run into the kingdom through faith in Christ. Father, we thank You for, again, Your clear Word. Such a privilege is ours. We are familiar with Your Word, sometimes too familiar. We need to be stunned again by its power, clarity, glory. We thank You that You have opened our eyes to understand the truth.

What a gift, an unspeakable gift, incalculable. Thank You that You have allowed us to love Christ with an incorruptible love. I pray that You will work in hearts today, that You will shine light into the darkness as You, O God, who said, let there be light, step into the hearts of people and shine the glorious light of Your own person shining in the face of Jesus Christ so that sinners can see and believe and be delivered from judgment.

This is our prayer, in Christ's name, amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and today's lesson is from John's series titled Stories with Purpose, Unlocking the Parables of Jesus. As you continue this series on Jesus' parables, I'm wondering, is there a unifying theme of the parables?

Is there something that every one of these stories focuses on? There is a unifying theme in the parables that our Lord told. They stretch across, of course, the Gospels, and it was only our Lord who told parables. None of the other writers of the New Testament made up parables.

Only our Lord did. So they're all contained in the Gospels. There are about 40 of them, but there is a common theme, and that theme is not lessons on how to live life, lessons on how to survive in the world, lessons on paths of righteous behavior.

No. The theme of the parables is salvation, salvation. And the only people who can understand the message are people who have been converted. Listen, for unbelievers, the parables are riddles, just complete riddles that they can't understand.

For believers taught by the Holy Spirit and with the rest of Scripture to inform them, they become clear expressions of the realities of our salvation. Now I've pulled together 12 of our Lord's most famous parables in a book called Parables, The Mysteries of God's Kingdom Revealed Through the Stories Jesus Told. Most people have suffered from a misrepresentation of the parables.

We need to fix that. You need to get a copy of the book titled, Parables. Jesus, the master storyteller, tells stories to demonstrate to us, to clarify for us the glories of our salvation. Order a copy today. Yes, do, because in this book you're going to see what Jesus said about the kingdom of God and your salvation in parables like The Pearl of Great Price and The Good Samaritan and The Persistent Widow and many others. To enrich your understanding of Jesus' stories, pick up a copy of John's book, simply titled Parables, contact us today. The book is available for $13.75 and shipping is free. To order, call our toll-free customer service line, 1-800-55-GRACE or visit our website GTY.org.

Again, the title is simple, Parables. Order your copy when you call 800-55-GRACE or visit GTY.org. And friend, keep in mind that listeners like you keep this broadcast on the air in communities across the United States and Canada and around the world. Your giving helps us take God's word to spiritually hungry families and strengthen churches and expose many non-believers to the saving truth of the gospel. To partner with us, mail your tax-deductible gift to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412.

You can also make a donation through our website, just go to GTY.org, or you can speak to a staff member weekdays from 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time. The number to call, 800-55-GRACE. And again, to order John's book titled Parables, call 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson inviting you back when we look at what John calls the most misunderstood of all Jesus' parables. Be here for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on tomorrow's Grace To You.