Today on the Verdict with Pastor John Monroe. You know what happens? Intolerance of the truth leads to rejection of the truth, and then leads to hatred of the truth. Do you know what's going on in our society? People first say, "Well, I see things differently," then they actively reject the truth, and then they hate the truth.
Welcome to the Verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. Increasingly, those who believe in the truth of Scripture seem to be on a collision course with our culture. How do you decide what to believe? Do you rely on your feelings and opinions and your perspective, or are you committed to the truth? This is our challenge as we turn to two parables by Jesus in Matthew 21.
Let's join Pastor John Monroe as he introduces today's message. The Apostle John writes that Jesus was in the world, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Here is the sinless Son of God performing miracles, giving brilliant teaching, declaring words of grace and truth.
Yet he is rejected. We live in a society where many don't believe in absolute truth. People talk of their truth, your truth, fake news, spin, and opinions. Jesus said that He was the truth, and everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice. Today we'll learn of the increasing intolerance and hostility against Jesus by those who felt threatened.
Let's be open to the truth as once again we listen to Jesus. Have you noticed that those of us who have convictions based on the Holy Scriptures are being regarded in our society more and more as intolerant and unloving? But followers of Jesus. We believe in truth. Jesus said, "I am the truth." Not just that he speaks the truth; he does that.
He is the truth. He also said in that prayer in John seventeen to his Father. We call it the high priestly prayer of Jesus. He said in John seventeen, verse seventeen, to his Father, "Your word is truth." What a strong statement! God is a God of truth.
He's a God who cannot lie, and in the wonder of the inspiration of Scripture, the living God speaks through His servants, so that what we have in our hands is the Word of God in truth. And those of us who believe this find ourselves in a kind of collision course with our society, which is becoming more and more intolerant of biblical truth. This even impacts the church of Jesus Christ. Many people come to church not primarily to hear the truth, but to feel good about themselves. And I suppose.
If you think that God exists to make your life easy, if you think God exists to make your life more comfortable, to make you feel good about yourself, to make you feel happy, then it's not a surprise if you don't want to hear the truth. There's a little girl called Samantha, and at school, she's told that she's unique, she's wonderful, she's very, very special, a wonderful little girl. The problem is at home. Mum and Dad don't quite understand what little Samantha has done that makes her so special or wonderful. As she comes home, and they look at her math test, and she gets half of the answers wrong.
As she writes a little essay, and the grammar is terrible, and it's full of misspellings. And when her parents talk to little Samantha about this, little Samantha is very upset, and she says, "Why can't you be nice to me like my teacher?" And her parents respond and say, "But honey, three times three is not fifteen." A little girl. Irrespective of her mistakes, is being told that she's special. She's wonderful. She gets things totally wrong, but still is affirmed by her teacher.
What has happened? Truth has trumped this little girl's insatiable demand to feel good and to feel special. And we have a whole generation growing up feeling that we're very, very special. And that the whole world exists to make me feel happy, and to feel that I'm kind of some wonderful person. Problem with that kind of thinking is what happens when it confronts truth.
What happens when you make yourself the center of your world and your goal in life is psychological happiness? What happens when you come face to face with the truth? In our passage today, we're going to see the increasing intolerance, in fact, increasing hostility against Jesus, who is the truth.
Now he's the perfect man. But as he confronts the religious leaders, they are threatened by the truth. Their authority, their power base, their influence is being undermined by Jesus, who not only teaches the truth but is the truth. And the intolerance of the religious leaders turns to hostility, and their hostility turns to hatred. And they're going to hate the truth so much that they're going to put to death on a cross the innocent man, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Truth. I ask you today: Are you open to the truth? Are you a seeker of the truth? Are you so determined that you will follow the truth? Could it be that some of us?
Are rejecting parts of the Holy Scripture because it is in opposition to our own desires, our own prejudices, our own lifestyles? Are we choosing what we believe or not believe based on our feelings, our our traditions, perhaps, our personal opinions, rather than pursuing and embracing the truth? Followers of Jesus are to be Committed to the truth, and we're going to see in the two little stories that Jesus tells the conflict between the religious leaders and Jesus, who is the truth. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter twenty-one, from verse twenty-eight to the end of the chapter, and we're going to see in this parable. Which we begin to read in verse twenty-eight.
The challenge of the truth. The challenge of the truth. First of all, Jesus tells a parable about two sons. Verse twenty-eight. What do you think?
Jesus wants us to be thinkers. He wants us to reflect. What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today." And he answered, "I will not." But afterward, he changed his mind and went.
And he went to the other son and said the same. And he said, "I go, sir," but did not go. Which of the two did the will of the father? They said. The first.
Let's just stop there. A parable of two sons. This is the the first of three parables told by Jesus against the religious establishment in this part of Matthew. We're going to think of two of them. With the coming of Jesus, there is a radical change.
So Jesus tells this little story, a very simple story. This is a small parable. A man has a vineyard, and his two sons. He goes to the first son and asks him to work in the vineyard. Incidentally, sons and daughters are to work.
My dad used to say to us at the table, "You want to eat like men, you need to work like men." Paul says in Second Thessalonians chapter three. That if you don't work, you shouldn't eat.
So, if you're a young man and young woman, good health, and you're living at home in your parents' basement doing video games, you need to go and work. Seriously, don't live on your parents. Don't live on the government. God wants you to work. That's not the point of the story, but that's what I'm saying to you.
Go today and work. Adam worked in the garden. Work is good. Laziness is condemned in Scripture.
So the man has a vineyard. Obviously, work has to be done, and he thinks I've got these two sons, obviously at an age and physical ability to work, and he asks them to go to work today in the vineyard. First one says, "I won't do it. I will not." That's strange for a son to say that to his father, but that's what the man says. He says, "His father, I won't do it." But afterwards, he changed his mind and went.
This expression "changed his mind" is similar to the word repenting. The man repented. That's what repentance is: is a change of mind leading to a change of action. He goes to the next son and says, "Will you work in my vineyard? Go work today, my vineyard." And the second son says, "Yes, I'll do that, sir." But he doesn't go.
And the question then, which Jesus asks, is not a difficult question. He says, "Which of the two does the will of the father?" And the answer is given. We read in verse thirty-one: "The first." That's it. The first son says no and repents and then does the work. The second son says I'll do the work but doesn't do it.
What do you think? Verse twenty-eight. What do you think? Why is Jesus telling this parable?
Now we're very fortunate because we have the interpretation. The interpretation, verse thirty-one. You see, what on earth does this mean? Here it is. You listening?
Verse thirty-one. Which of the two did the will of the Father? Easy answer: the first. Jesus said to them, "Here it is. Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." What a statement!
Who's he talking to? The chief priests and the elders. Verse forty-five. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. Verse thirty-two.
For John came to you in the way of righteousness, as John the Baptist, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. You remember John the Baptist. Jesus is saying, "What was the message of John the Baptist? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The religious leaders in the parable of the second son.
The religious leaders should have been the first to respond to the way of righteousness. They were religious. John is a prophet. He's in fulfilment of Malachi, and John comes and he's preaching the way of righteousness. He's preaching about the necessity of repentance and preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
Of all of the people in Israel, the religious leaders, the chief priests, and the elders should have been the first to say, "Yes, we repent and we believe in John." But they don't do it. Surprisingly, people you would not have expected, and who probably initially resisted the message, are people who are corrupt and people who are immoral—the tax collectors.
Now remember, Israel is under the heel of Rome. The tax is collected and is given by the tax collectors to Rome, but in the transfer from the person to Rome, the tax collectors are taking quite a bit of their share. They are corrupt. They are deceitful people. They are spies.
They're the lowest of the law. You're a tax collector. You're working with the Romans. The very opposite. Of righteousness, and then there's the prostitutes.
Oh, they make quite a good living with all of the Roman soldiers there. They're selling themselves. They're immoral people.
So here are people in that society, the lowest of the low, and yet Jesus is saying, "Did you hear it? The tax collectors and the prostitutes." Go into the kingdom of God before you. The religious people, the people who knew their Bibles, the people you would have expected to have embraced the message of John and humility, resist it. And the very people you would have expected to say no, and perhaps initially said no, are those who repent. Who recognize they are not righteous?
Who recognize that in the sight of a holy God they are sinful people? They repent. They are baptized, and they enter the kingdom of God. Shocking, isn't it? This is the teaching of Jesus.
And says Jesus, "Did you know this?" In verse thirty-two, at the end, even when you saw it, even when you saw what was happening to the tax collectors and the prostitutes, here's a man like Zacchaeus, who is who is converted by the grace of God, and his life is changed. Here's the prostitutes; you know them. When they repent, they stop their immorality. Even when you saw that, you still did not repent. And you still did not enter the kingdom of God.
Verse twenty-eight. What do you think? This makes us think, doesn't it? See, God is not impressed by lip service or promises to do something. Here's a man who said, "Yes, I'll go," and doesn't go.
Many people have said to God that they'll get right with God. Many people have said that they will repent and believe the gospel sometime, but it never happens. On the other hand, I've seen this in my ministry: the very people that you think are the furthest from the kingdom of God, in actual fact, repent and get right with God. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful that when our Lord Jesus comes into this sinful world, He embraces the lowest of the low.
He embraces the sinners because that's the very heart of God that He comes to seek and to save the lost. Isn't the gospel wonderful? The challenge of the truth. Secondly, the rejection of the truth. The parable in verse.
Thirty-three. Let's read this parable. Isn't Jesus a master storyteller? Here is another story about the vineyard. Here another parable.
Verse thirty-three. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for the 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. 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. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these tenants? They said to him, "He will put these wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons." Let's just stop there. The rejection of the truth. Here is another parable told by Jesus.
Another story told by Jesus about a vineyard.
Now, much of the land of Israel was owned by absentee landowners. In this case, the owner has a vineyard. He prepares it. Does a lot of work for it. A lot of expense.
He takes care of it, as we read in verse thirty-three, and then he leases out the vineyard to tenants for his rent. The owner is entitled to a share of the produce. The owner, the landlord, in the story is absent, but over a period of time, he sends his servants to collect his share of the produce. That's the agreement. Rather than the servants getting part of the profit of the vineyard, the servants are beaten.
And killed, unbelievable, isn't it? He sends several of them, and they're and they're killed. And finally, he says, "Well, I'll send my son. They will respect him." When he comes, the tenants think, "Well, the owner might be dead. Here's his son coming to us.
We'll kill the son." And then perhaps we can really own this vineyard instead of just leasing it.
Well, we'll claim his inheritance, and so they kill the son. You got the story? Simple story. Justice demands, obviously, that the tenants are judged, and the vineyard is given to others. This is terrible treatment by these tenants, killing the owner's servants, and finally killing his son.
What's the interpretation of the parable? Is it that difficult? Remember who he's speaking to. He's speaking to the religious establishment, to the chief priests and the elders, to the Pharisees. This parable is an indictment against Israel.
The vineyard here then represents Israel. The vinegrowers, who are they? They are the corrupt religious leaders. Again, verse forty-five: the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables. They perceived that he was speaking about them.
Who is the son in the parable? That the owner says. Finally, the owner sends his son. Clearly, our Lord Jesus Christ. In all of the progress of Revelation.
Prophet after prophet comes, and now comes God's Son, finally, our Lord Jesus Christ. He sends him in great love to save them, and God's Son is standing in their very midst, telling them this parable. Do you get the scene? Do you get what's going through the mind of the religious leaders? They knew their Bible.
They knew he was speaking against them. He is confronting them with the truth. Think of the courage of our Lord Jesus Christ. What are the religious leaders doing? Not only are they rejecting the truth.
Not only are they not believing the truth. They are actively plotting to kill God's beloved Son, just as King Herod wanted to silence the voice of John the Baptist because he spoke truth.
Now the religious leaders want to silence the voice of God's Son because they do not want the truth. They are repudiating God's rule over them. No, we are the rulers of Israel. We'll do what we want. They don't like the truth, and just as their forefathers had done in the past, rejecting the prophet sent to them, so they reject God's message to them.
This is the verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. There's still more to hear when John returns in just a moment.
So stay with us. From matters of truth and identity to the subjects of love and grace, our world seems more confused than ever. But to find truth and certainty about who we are and find peace, we must turn our attention away from the world and look to the Word of God. To help you do that, John wrote a booklet titled "Eternal Security: Finding Certainty in a Chaotic World." Through this special resource, John shares his personal testimony along with a careful examination of Scripture to offer us clarity on matters of eternity. Get your copy today by visiting our website at theverdict.org.
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Now, here's Pastor John Monroe.
Well, what's your verdict? Do you pursue truth, or do you want to live your life based on your own ideas, your preferences, and feelings? Are you like the little girl who had an insatiable need to feel special and happy, and therefore could handle the truth? God looks to the humble. To those who seek to understand and obey the truth of God as revealed in His Word and in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, today listen and obey the truth, and join me next time as we continue to see those who reject the truth.
Thanks for joining us today on the Verdict. I'm Michelle Davies. Today's program with Pastor John Monroe was produced and sponsored by Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
