"What Is Dispensationalism? The church is a new people" Luke 20:9-19 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Luke chapter 20 takes place on the third day of Jesus' teaching in the temple.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

This is the last week of his life.

He will be crucified soon.

He'll be arrested, betrayed, crucified.

But for now, he's in the temple, and his hostility with the Pharisees has been gradually increasing.

The showdown has become more and more extreme.

There has been the triumphal entry has happened.

Jesus cleanses the temple.

That has taken place, and cleanses the temple is almost too much of a domesticated term for what Jesus did.

He uh purified it, he overthrew it, he shut it down, he tipped over tables, he rebuked people, he made a whip, etc.

I mean, he didn't simply clean it.

He went to work on it.

And of course, the Pharisees and the tax collectors uh all stood rebuked by Jesus.

Um, they they all stood condemned by his teaching the powerful Jews who betrayed the people to the Roman Empire, the tax collectors, they stood condemned by Jesus.

The powerful Pharisees and Sadducees, they stood condemned by Jesus.

Everybody stood condemned by Jesus.

The Herodians, the party of Herod and the Pharisees, and the Sadducees are going to get together and plot a way to trap Jesus.

That's coming up in Luke chapter 20.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

But before then, almost as if Jesus knows what's going to happen, because Jesus knows what's going to happen, he tells a parable.

And this parable is at this critical juncture.

So everybody knows where Jesus stands in relationship to the Pharisees.

They know this.

He's condemning them.

He's already brought havoc into the temple.

And Jesus knows what's coming next.

They're going to try to trap him.

But in that window, in that little time here, Jesus is going to respond with a parable.

Now, it's a parable that's well known.

You've heard it.

Uh, it's outrageous, and because it's so well known, you likely won't appreciate it for how outrageous it is.

So I Americanized it a little bit for you.

I tried to make it Northern Virginia friendly.

So imagine a military family has moved here and uh kind of a low part of the housing market before the houses have shot up.

And so they bought a house and they spent their two years here.

They did their time at the Pentagon, they even extended two more years.

And now it's, you know, four years later, it's they're run out of town.

They're transferred to, I don't know, Japan, let's say.

And they go off to Japan.

But they leave their house here.

And they leave their house with uh some people from church.

And they say, hey, seminary students, we're gonna rent this house out to you, seminary students.

Seminary students are poor and starving and need places to live, and so we're gonna leverage the real estate market right now.

We have it, it's increasing in value.

We don't want to sell it because we know the market's gonna go up the next few years.

Well, we're in Japan, the government pays for housing there anyway.

So we're gonna let seminary students live in it, just maintain it and pay the utilities, and you know, and all is well.

Uh, and so so that happens.

And then a few years later, this couple decides they're gonna move back to Northern Virginia and move back into their house.

So, so far, this is a very normal story, right?

You understand the story.

You could have happened to you.

So before the couple moves back, they ask a friend from church to go check on the house, make sure it's still standing, and the friend knocks on the door, and the seminary student opens the door and sees the person from church there, obviously, to check on the house, and punches him in the face.

And yells at him and curses him and tells him to go away and not to come back.

That family is not getting their house back.

So that would be kind of an outrageous turn in the story, correct?

And so the couple up in Germany, you know, sends another couple up in uh Japan sends another couple over.

And the the next couple comes over, and maybe they have like an elder or deacon from the church to watch this and they're FaceTiming it on their phone as they show up, and you're like, this is what's gonna happen.

And the seminary students you know, beat them up and you know, stuff one of them in the dumpster and throw the phone down the drainage ditch and shoo them away.

Well, this couple in Japan is thinking, like, what is going on?

Well, you know what?

I know what we'll do.

We're gonna send our son.

Our son lives in Denver, he'll fly out, he'll check on the house.

They won't mistreat our son because they know he's our son, and we've let him live there rent-free for the past, you know, two years.

Seminary students.

And so the son shows up at the house and rings the doorbell.

Well, in the period of time, you're wondering what are these seminary students thinking?

Well, they've done Google, they've done some research here, and they know about the laxed zoning laws in in Fairfax County, and they've established their residence in this house over two years, and so if they can get rid of this guy, they can't get evicted.

They know this house will be theirs.

All the leverage in the real estate market will be theirs.

They've established residency, they've received mail for years.

There's no getting rid of these people.

They're claiming the house as their own.

And the son rings the doorbell and they think, man, if we killed the son, then the house would be ours.

And so they murder the guy.

Now you can tell how outrageous the story is.

And it's worth thinking, like, what would actually happen if that story took place?

What would really happen?

And the truth is, you can put this together, the truth is the police would come and everybody would go to jail.

You know, they might have gotten away with staying in the house for a while.

They didn't murder the guy, but and once they cross that threshold, they're in trouble.

So the story that Jesus tells is like that.

It's a very accessible story that starts out with a very normal economic interaction that everybody who's listening to the story would understand.

It takes a dramatic twist in the middle of it that upends everything, and then Jesus is gonna end with a question that is pretty easy to answer if you actually think about it.

So I'm gonna read it for you.

Uh Luke chapter 20, verse 9.

Luke 20:9

Jesus began to tell the people this parable.

That phrase began, means that uh he didn't just tell it this this one time, he was uh repeating it.

It's recorded in Mark as well as Matthew.

It's three times in the New Testament.

The words are more or less the same, but there are some differences.

He was camping on the story this morning.

A man planted a vineyard and lent it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while.

He's gone several years.

This is an absent landlord.

This kind of thing was not incredibly uncommon in Israel, uh especially once Rome had occupied Israel.

Uh there's more Jews living in Egypt than there were in Israel, but because of the way the Jews did their property, uh, the people that had fled to Egypt, and some of them had even gone the dispersion up to you know Rome and Corinth and, you know, all over up through Turkey and Asia Minor.

There were Jews spread everywhere.

But most of them had fled to Egypt.

They had maintained their property connections, they were renting it out or letting out their property.

If it could be used as a vineyard, great.

So that's what was happening.

Uh it's happening all over Israel.

A very common scene.

Uh he was gone a long while.

When the time came, verse 10, that time would be five years.

Uh Leviticus 19, verse 23, says, You cannot sell the grapes from your vineyard until five years have passed.

Leviticus 19:23

I think the fourth year of the grapes belong to God.

I think that's right.

The fourth year of the grapes belong to God.

The fifth year you can sell them.

So that's kind of the time frame here.

Five years have gone by, and he sends a servant uh to them.

That word for servant is the word for slave, sends a slave to them, to the tenants.

Um they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.

So the slave comes to collect the rent.

But the tenants beat him up, sent him away empty-handed.

The word beat him up there is a pretty uh decao, is the Greek word.

Uh it means skinned.

I mean, they punched him, not like literally skinned like an animal, but the the idea is that they beat him up so badly his skin was coming off of his face.

He was scabbed, it's it's uh, you know, this is beyond a black eye.

Like they almost beat him to death.

That's what this word means.

Um the word that Matthew uses is uh akafaleo, which means to which is uh kephalaya's head.

It means they crushed his head in.

So Matthew describes it as his head getting crushed in, Luke describes it as getting skinned alive, is the idiom in English.

That's what happens to this guy.

He gets beat almost to death.

And then they send him away empty-handed, yeah, no kidding.

Verse 11, they send a different guy.

And as I mentioned, this is the shocking twist.

The beginning of this, like so many of Jesus' parables, it starts with such an easily accessible story, and then you find something that's just completely outrageous.

Um the beating up of the guy.

So he sends him another servant, the landowner's committed to this strategy, I guess.

They also beat him up and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed, verse 11 says.

So he sent yet a third.

This one also went away, wounded and cast out.

Uh Matthew lets you know that some of these servants in the story were killed.

Again, Jesus has been telling the story for a while.

In some versions of his story, the servants were killed.

In other words, people, these people were ruthless.

Verse 12, you could almost feel the crowd growing in anger with the story.

Remember the scene here.

Jesus is telling this in the temple, the steps of the temple.

There's a large crowd that are listening to this.

If you're hearing the story for the first time, you're going to be angry at the story.

That was the experience a lot of people had listening to Jesus' parables.

Remember?

They would hear the story.

Prodigal son is the great example of all these things.

You know, a normal story with a shocking twist.

The guy wants the money, he's sent away.

Pharisees are getting angry at the younger son.

I mean, Jesus is just the master storyteller here.

So the crowd is certainly agitated.

They're angry now.

Um, they have sympathy for the fictional character.

The fictional uh vineyard owner is obviously on the crowd's side.

There's sympathy for him.

Well, verse 13.

The owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do?

Just the way Jesus tells the story.

Marvel at it.

You know, he gives the hypothetical, Jesus is making up a story.

This didn't really happen, of course, and he gives the hypothetical interlocution of the guy, like his own question.

The guy wonders, What shall I do?

Jesus says.

And of course, why does Jesus say that in the story?

Because he wants you to wonder, what should the guy do?

You know, what should the landowner do?

Probably go there himself and get the military involved.

Tell the Romans.

The Romans would send a bunch of soldiers, not gonna beat up the Romans.

The Romans would take care of business.

Go to them.

That's probably what the people are thinking.

Like, get law enforcement involved at this point.

Nobody can believe this story.

But if you do buy into it and you hear the rhetorical question, what shall I do?

That's what you would say.

Gotta take care of business.

Well, the landowner decides something different in the middle of verse 13.

I will send my beloved son.

Perhaps they will respect him.

And you can almost hear people going, No, not your beloved son.

You have a different son?

Send the other son.

Send the son you don't like.

Some dads are like, Yeah, I totally got a son I'd send.

Well, this isn't that kind of son.

This is a beloved son.

The son the dad actually likes.

I'll send him.

I'll send him.

Maybe.

Maybe, the guy says in verse 13, perhaps they will respect him.

Well, if you've bought into the story this far, you're thinking there's no way they're gonna respect him.

Of course not.

Verse 14 the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, This is the heir.

Let's kill him, so the inheritance will be ours.

So they're trying to take advantage of the squatter laws in Israel, similar to Fairfax County.

They've established residency there for years.

They've been growing grapes there for years.

The landowner lives in another country.

If the heir dies, there's nobody left to take the land from them.

It's theirs.

They'll have it.

They'll leverage the increased value of the vineyard over the five years they've been gone.

It's yielding now, it's more productive now than it was five years ago.

There's a delta there, a growth in the value of it, and they're going to leverage it for themselves.

All it takes is murdering the air.

And so that's what they do.

This is the air.

Let's kill him.

The inheritance may be ours.

In verse 15, they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do to them?

That's Jesus' question now.

So the parable's over.

The son of the owner is dead and thrown outside the vineyard.

What do you think the vineyard owner will do when his son doesn't come home?

And word gets to him the son was murdered.

It's an interesting question to think about.

As when I give the introduction today, I said they probably called the police.

What do you think the vineyard owner will do?

He's going to call the police, of course, but in the Jewish world, he's going to do more than that.

And when Jesus asks this, it's not recorded here in Luke, but in Matthew, when Jesus says, what do you think is going to happen?

The crowd answers.

The Pharisees shout back what should happen.

They say, this is Matthew 21, verse 41, they will bring those wretches to a wretched end.

Matthew 21:41

That's what the Pharisees say.

So the Pharisees hear this story and they've bought in at this point.

Hook line sinker.

He's gonna kill them.

Those miserable wretches, they should not just die, not just capital punishment, they should die a horrible death.

A wretched death.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

They should suffer.

Sanhedrin declares it.

The Pharisees declare it.

They all condemn themselves.

So, what's the story about?

What's going on in the story?

Why does Jesus choose the story?

What are the Pharisees missing?

The Pharisees obviously are not, they're not intentionally condemning themselves.

They just don't see it.

They're not familiar with it.

It's the first time they've heard it.

They're not familiar with it.

They haven't, the pieces haven't fallen.

Now the pieces are gonna fall in their mind very quickly.

You're gonna see in verse, by the end of this parable, by the end of this uh evening together, you're gonna see that the Pharisees figure it out.

But right now, the bird hasn't landed.

Right now they're looking at the parable and they're angry and they want the murderers killed, but they haven't figured out.

So what's really going on?

Well, there should have been warning signs for the Pharisees.

Back in verse 9, a man planted a vineyard, led it out to tenants.

And the version of it that's in Matthew describes the other uh characteristics of the vineyard.

It's a direct quote from Isaiah chapter 5.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

It is the only parable that Jesus tells that uses scripture.

That should have been a warning sign for them.

When Jesus starts a parable and starts it with an Old Testament quote, that should be a wake-up call, that this is unusual at the very least.

That Jesus is telling a story that has its roots in the Old Testament.

What's even more jarring about that is you go to Isaiah 5, you recognize that Isaiah 5 is in itself a parable.

Isaiah 5 is the story of a man who builds a vineyard and wants it to be fruitful.

And it builds a fence around it to keep out the enemies, builds a guard tower in it to protect them.

But the vineyard doesn't grow.

In fact, in Isaiah 5, the vineyard turns on the owner and rebels.

And what should happen to it after all the care and everything that goes into it?

Is it going to get burned to the ground?

What's going to happen to it?

That's the story in Isaiah 5.

And of course, the story in Isaiah 5 is about Israel.

Israel is the vineyard.

They are represented by the vineyard.

They're God's chosen people, that God ministered them.

He protected them.

He built a fence around them.

They were guarded, they were protected.

Geographically, they were protected.

They had the Mediterranean Sea.

They have the Dead Sea and the desert out there, the Jordan River, and just desolate on the other side of that.

Where Sodom and Gomorrah used to be on the northern side.

You have the mountains.

There's a natural mountain range there.

I mean, it's a protected place.

God protects Jerusalem's up in the mountains.

Very difficult to get to, very difficult to conquer Jerusalem.

They had that physical protection, they had spiritual protection.

God had sent them prophets and had given him his word and the covenants and the promises.

All were Israel's.

God was protecting them.

What was Israel supposed to do?

Deuteronomy 4.

They were supposed to be a light to the nations.

They were supposed to let their light shine.

They were supposed to draw the nations to themselves through their own moral purity and their own devotion to Yahweh.

The nations would come to Israel and see that Yahweh is God.

The nations would be drawn towards the promise of the Savior.

Remember the Abrahamic covenant that the Savior would come.

The Savior would be a blessing to the nations.

The nations should have seen that.

Instead, that never happened.

The Queen of Sheba came.

You got exceptions here and there.

Naaman came because he had leprosy and a Jewish slave girl who said there was a prophet in Israel that could heal him.

I mean, those are the kind of people that came.

That's the point of Isaiah 5.

They didn't grow like they were supposed to.

So what does God do?

God does a natural thing, He sends them prophets, He sends them messengers.

God sends his people to Israel to collect rent, to encourage them to repent, to be faithful to the land, the landlord.

And that's of course described in the parable.

So this is leaving Isaiah 5 now.

The Jews should have known this is about Isaiah 5 because Jesus starts with a direct quote of Isaiah 5.

But they didn't catch it.

Slid under their radar, and now he's walking you through Old Testament history.

The landlord went on a long journey.

Well, what's that about?

Well, this is the Old Testament history.

There's a long period of time between the fall of Jericho and the arrival of the Pharisees.

A long period of time.

Thousand years.

What happened in that thousand years?

What went down?

Did they ever produce fruit?

No.

But God sent messengers repeatedly to them.

And what happened to those messengers?

Oh, they were beat up.

They were treated shamefully.

It's a strange phrase.

They killed some in Matthew's version of the parable.

They killed some, they beat some up, and others they treated shamefully.

You think, oh, if I got to choose, I would I want I'd want to be the shamefully treated one.

What does that mean?

They treated him shamefully.

Well, this is what happened to the prophets.

Some of them were killed.

Some of them were beat up.

Some of them were treated shamefully.

I mean, it's describing what Israel did to the prophets.

Amos 7.

Amos had to flee Israel.

Amos 7 verse 12 had to free flee Israel for his life.

Amos 7:12

He was afraid they would kill him.

He ran away.

They treated him shamefully.

He ran away.

Jeremiah was attacked, thrown into a pit, left to die until he was fetched out by somebody who had sympathy on him.

That's Jeremiah 38.

Ezekiel was persecuted, treated shamefully.

Ezekiel 2, verse 6.

Ezekiel 2:6

They're gonna hurl insults at you and treat you in a shameful fashion.

The prophet Zechariah said, Hey, I've given my life to you guys.

Do you want me to leave?

If you want me to leave, pay me.

That's what Zechariah said.

You know what they did?

Gave him 30 pieces of silver and told him to leave.

He devoted his life to ministering to the Jews.

They buy him out for 30 pieces of silver and run him out of the country.

At least he got money.

There's a different Zechariah who was killed in the temple area next to the altar.

They murdered him there.

Isaiah was sawn in two.

That's what tradition says.

The Bible doesn't say Isaiah was saw in two.

But Hebrews says that somebody was sawn in two, Hebrews 11, verse 37.

Hebrews 11:37

Probably Isaiah.

That's not a good way to die.

Micaiah, prophet Micaiah at the end of 1 Kings, punched in the face.

For what?

There was some pagan prophet up there with horns on his head, prancing around on the stage.

And Micaiah said, That's not of the Lord.

And tells the king, you go out to battle, you're not coming back.

In the face.

That's the story of the Old Testament prophets.

And God kept sending them over and over and over again.

Now, not every prophet was beat up, not every prophet was martyred.

God rescued some.

Elijah, Elijah didn't get martyred, but remember, Elijah quit.

He was so disappointed with how Israel was treating him, he had to go in hiding.

And he flees Israel.

That's the story of him.

I mean, this is one after another.

Even through Ezra.

I mean, they betrayed Ezra.

Ezra's life ends with them pulling out his own beard.

I mean, just weeping at the wall.

That's the Old Testament history, one after another.

And what happened after all those prophets were finally run out?

This is when the Pharisees develop, the Sanhedrin develop in that time period.

You know, they lose their genealogical records, they lose track of who's in what tribe after the exile, they come back, the whole thing's a mess.

The Pharisees rise up as the religious leaders in Israel.

They take over temple worship, they establish themselves as in control of the vineyard.

They're not producing fruit in keeping with repentance.

They're not giving the landowner his fruit.

And you're reading the Old Testament.

This is, if you've read 1 and 2 Kings, I mean, how far into 1 and 2 Kings do you get before you just think, why?

Like just stop already.

Do you think it's going to get better with the next king?

I was, when I preached to you 1 and 2 Kings a few years ago here, that's what just struck me the most.

It's like it keeps getting worse.

And every time it gets worse, God sends somebody else.

And there might be a good king thrown in there.

There's little pictures of the gospel all throughout there.

God's never without a gospel witness.

There's little pictures of the gospel sprinkled throughout 1 and 2 Kings.

Even Manasseh, the most wicked king they ever had, he converts at the end of his life.

I mean, there's there's hope.

But man, there's no turning that boat around.

I mean, that that ship has sailed.

They're too far gone, and God keeps sending people to them.

So much, remember when we finished Ezra and Nehemiah, you're wondering, like, is it going to be any different?

Nehemiah ends with the whole showdown and the enemies living inside the temple.

Remember?

Sandballot and Tobiah moved into the temple.

Nehemiah was no Ezra, you know, Ezra pulled out his own beard.

Nehemiah pulls out their beards.

Did you think it would end differently?

Did you have a different expectation for how it would end?

If so, you're not paying attention here.

They're in open rebellion against God around every corner.

Why did God keep delaying judgment on them?

2 Peter 3, verse 9, the Lord is patient to you, not willing that any of you should perish.

2 Peter 3:9

So God is patient.

That's why he kept sending other people.

He knew what was going to happen to them.

Nevertheless, the Sanhedrin are hearing the story and they do not see the point of it.

They miss the Isaiah 5 introduction.

They miss that this is the oldest, they miss that this is Old Testament history from Jesus' perspective.

That's what they miss.

They think it's a story about Joseph down the street in his vineyard.

That's what they think.

No, it's about them.

And they don't recognize anybody in this story.

We read it and we're like, well, there's Isaiah, there's Ezekiel, there's Micaiah.

But nobody was ready for what comes next.

Verse, what is it, verse 13?

The Son comes.

Again, remember when I read the story, the first time you're supposed to have that experience, like, no, not the Son.

But when you recognize this is Old Testament history, what's it building to?

It's building towards the Son who comes.

It's building towards the Son who would come and rescue.

Matthew 17, verse 5.

Matthew 17:5

A voice from heaven declares, This is my son, with whom I'm well pleased.

God declares that this Jesus Christ is the Son.

God recognizes it.

John 3, verse 16, and says, This is my only begotten Son.

John 3:16

Think of the word only begotten.

It's the special son whom God loves, that God has a special relationship with him.

It's the Son whom he loves.

Hebrews 1 verse 12.

Hebrews 1:12

This is the Son through whom the world was created.

Not that God has more than one Son, but think of all the language that is used of the second person of the Trinity, that He's special, unique, the only begotten Son of God.

And then you get this word sent.

By the Father.

And when God sends His Son into the world, this is speaking of Trinitarian terms from before time.

That in eternity past the Father has set his plan of salvation in motion.

He decreed what he was going to do.

And then he sends his son into the world in time.

That language is here in Jesus' own parable.

He's speaking of himself here, of course.

He's describing himself as one who was sent.

And of course, will ultimately be killed.

So what do the Jewish leaders do with this story?

How do they respond to it?

They don't understand it at first.

In fact, they declare in verse 16, when they heard this, they said, Surely not.

This can't happen.

They start to figure it out and they just declare, this is not acceptable.

This is the age-old desire to dethrone God, hold on to his kingdom for ourselves.

That's what the Pharisees are doing for themselves here.

They don't recognize that in a few days from now, they're going to be the ones that are attacking the Son.

They're going to put themselves in this story by murdering Jesus.

You see this even today.

Judaism today rejects the most of most of Judaism is not waiting for a savior.

You know that.

We sometimes think of Judaism is still waiting for the Messiah to come.

That's not true.

Most of Judaism views Israel as the messianic figure, views Israel as the culmination of this.

I just think about the thought process that's behind that.

If you give up hope of a savior coming to earth, and you say we've gotten rid of the Savior, Jesus is gone, it's not him, then who gets the vineyard in that parable?

They do.

They killed the sun, they killed the air.

This was the plan.

They'll kill the air and keep the vineyard for themselves.

And so today, even, most of not every Jew, there's some kind of form of Jews with messianic hope, but most Jews, the majority belief in Judaism is that Israel itself is that messianic figure.

Their own Savior.

The vineyard is them.

They are the vineyard.

They own the vineyard.

It is their place.

Pharisees in verse 7, 16 are crying, surely not.

This can't be.

It can't be.

Remember, Jesus is telling this parable, the massive crowd filling the stairs of the temple.

Everything is shut down as he's telling this parable.

The religious leaders are out there.

They don't want the temple, the temple brought to a screeching halt again, which he's already done.

They don't want a repeat of this.

And so it's a massive scene here.

And Jesus tells the story, and the Pharisees shout, they need to die, and then they start to figure it out, and they said, Surely not.

And now Jesus just unleashes them.

Look at verse 17.

Look at the- I love the way Luke says this in verse 17.

Jesus looked directly at them.

Have you seen that phrase before?

I mean, that's a new phrase, isn't it?

Jesus at this point went from storytelling Jesus to laser focused on these Pharisees, on the Sanhedrin, on the religious leaders of Israel that have wormed their way to the front of the crowd.

Jesus is staring right into their souls now.

And he asks them a question.

And quote, Psalm 118, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is the scene with the prophet Nathan, where he confronts David and says, Hey, the guy had sheep.

Neighbor, poor guy, sheep.

Rich guy stole sheep, slaughtered sheep.

What should happen?

David's like, kill him.

And Nathan says, you are the man.

It's you.

That's what's happening here.

Jesus turns it to them and says, Haven't you read Psalm 118?

Of course the Pharisees had read Psalm 118.

They knew what it said.

I mean, yesterday they were singing Psalm 118 with the Hosanna, the triumphal entry.

They were singing it.

Verse 26 of Psalm 118, Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh.

We bless you in the house of Yahweh.

That was the song Jesus entered into.

And now he turns the song.

Everybody is singing to the Pharisees and says, Haven't you even read the lyrics?

What happens in that psalm?

The stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone.

What's the stone the builders rejected?

Well, the temple is built on a cornerstone that marks the twelve tribes of Israel.

That's the cornerstone.

Jesus, the true Israel, has come to earth and is rejected.

So what's going to happen?

He's going to become the cornerstone.

There's going to be a new temple.

He says, I'll tear this temple down.

And they say, You can't tear this temple down.

It took decades to build.

And he says, I'll raise it in three days.

And they don't get what he's talking about.

He's saying he's the temple.

You're going to kill him and he'll resurrect.

I want you to flip over.

You can keep your finger in Matthew 20.

Flip over to Matthew 21.

Left a few books.

I want you to see how Matthew ends this parable there.

Matthew 21, verse 43.

Matthew 21:43

If you're using the Pew Bible, it's page 827 or so.

If you turn over there, Jesus says the same thing.

It's recorded the same way here.

Have you ever read the scriptures?

Have you never read the scriptures?

And I just love it when Jesus talks to the Pharisees like that.

Have you never read the scriptures?

And quotes a very famous psalm that they were singing.

Verse 43, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

That's the conclusion of the story.

The kingdom of God will be taken away from you.

This is a radically disruptive story.

This is marking a change.

This is not more of the same.

This is not, we're going to retool Israel, make some changes, expand Israel, make a couple of additions to Israel.

This is not the homeowner who says, I'm going to get myself a new kitchen and expand the porch.

This is the homeowner who says the whole thing is going to be bulldozed over.

Jesus says, the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you.

Those who possess it right now will lose it.

And it's going to be given to others who will produce its fruit.

Remember, that's back to Isaiah 5.

The vineyard was supposed to grow fruit, it wasn't producing fruit, they're going to lose it.

That was the whole narrative is held together, the whole parable held together by this, and now it's going to be given to people who do produce its fruit.

You can flip back to Luke.

So what's Jesus talking about?

When he says that the kingdom is going to be taken from you and given to somebody else, who is the you and who is the somebody else?

I mean, this is, again, I probably everything I've said tonight, normal, Sunday school, this parable, you got it.

You've known it, it's in the kids' Bibles, you're on it.

Maybe not the bloody vineyard in the kids' Bibles, but you get the point.

This is a pretty introductory story.

But have you ever stopped and asked about the conclusion?

Who is the kingdom being taken from?

And to whom is it being given?

Well, the religious leaders of Israel understood this part of the parable.

You see this back in Luke verse 40.

Back in Luke 20, sorry, verse 19.

The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them.

So they there's hope for them.

After that quote of Psalm 118, they figured it out.

Like, wait a minute, are we the bad guys in the story?

Of course they are.

And they just condemned themselves.

That's the point of this.

So the kingdom, in this language, the kingdom promises of Israel.

Isaiah chapter 5, the vineyard, is being taken from them.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

They're the religious leaders of Israel, and they have forfeited their position by virtue of how they've treated the prophets.

I mean, Jesus tells them, You and your ancestors killed all the prophets.

Speaking of the Pharisees, you guys killed all the prophets.

Aid is the Abel to Zechariah, which is a funny way of saying it.

And in God's providence, it works out, it is the Abel to Zechariah.

Abel the first prophet, Zechariah the last one who was killed, hanging in the horns of the altar.

I mean, you guys did this all the time.

And it's going down.

God's not going to tolerate it forever.

Look earlier, right before this, Luke 19, verse 43.

Luke 19:43

Skin your eyes up.

Right before Jesus cleanses the temple, or even verse 41, as Jesus is entering the city, he sees the city and he weeps over it.

Verse 42, I wish you would have known what would have made for peace.

But it's hidden from your eyes.

The days will come upon you where your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side.

This is language borrowed from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel said, The day is going to come where this thing will never happen to you anymore, by the way.

Ezekiel tells the mountains, you will never give up your young.

Your young will never be killed.

You will never make Israelite women barren again.

You will only produce fruit.

And I mean, that's that's a prophecy.

There's a time coming when the kingdom comes that will happen.

Well, here, you know the kingdom's not here yet because Jesus is saying, listen, you this is gonna happen.

The mountains are gonna go down, the mountains will be barricaded around, hemmed on every side, you will be torn to the ground, verse 44 says.

And the children within you, again, language from Ezekiel, only the time, the opposite.

Your children will be given up, forfeited, and not one stone will be left upon another in you, because you didn't know who visited you.

The sun is coming and you kill him, and so the whole system is coming down.

Then he goes and cleanses the temple.

I mean, are you understanding what's happening here?

He's telling the Pharisees, your temple, your system will be destroyed and taken from you.

Look at Luke 21.

Turn right, next chapter.

Jesus saw the rich people putting up gifts in the offering box.

And in the temple, all these big receptacles shaped like trumpets.

You'd drop your uh your gift in, make a lot of noise.

You drop coins in, it makes a lot of noise.

And they used to have at the mall those things, you drop a quarter in and it circles around and around and around and around and around, and everybody watches.

That's how the giving was taking place at the temple.

It was just done so everybody could see and celebrate.

The rich people are giving.

Lots of noise going into those things, lots of noise.

Coins everywhere, applause, trumpets, the whole, the whole shebang.

A poor widow comes in, she puts in two small copper coins.

The whole thing is sad.

Um, you don't look at this like, oh, you should give like the widow.

Yeah, if you only have two dollars left in this world, don't give it to the church.

Earlier I prayed you would give to the church, but if you have enough money for one meal, don't give it to the church and then go home and be hungry.

This is not a virtue, this is not virtuous here.

What this woman does is not virtuous, she's a victim of a false religious system.

It's a sad, sad story.

A poor widow is gonna put her coins in a false religious offering box and go home and die.

And Jesus, of course, responds to them.

Verse 4, she's giving out of her poverty.

What do you think God's gonna do with a system that does that to women?

People are speaking while this is happening.

Man, look at the nice rocks on the temple, verse five.

Look at how neat this is.

Noble stones.

Of course the temple looks nice.

They're taking everybody's money.

And Jesus in verse six says, You see these things?

They're going to be torn down.

Verse six.

The whole thing, the whole thing is coming down.

And they asked him, teacher, when will these things be?

And Jesus says, it's it's gonna happen soon.

Soon, false teachers will come.

By the way, Matthew lets you know that it's Peter and John that asked him when are these things?

Peter and John and Andrew took him away privately and said, When is this gonna happen?

What a classic Peter question, isn't it?

Is it gonna be destroyed?

When, Lord?

Can I be the one who calls the fire?

It's gonna be destroyed.

Who's Jesus going to give it to?

By the way, it's gonna be destroyed in Luke 23.

You can flip over one more verse.

I won't have you walk all over Luke, just one more place we'll land.

Luke 23.

Verse 44, it was the sixth hour.

There was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour when the sun's light failed.

And then look at Luke 23, 45.

The curtain of the temple was torn into.

This is prefiguring it.

The curtain comes down.

They've lost their access to the Holy of Holies.

It's now wide open, wide open.

The most sacred part of the temple, now exposed.

Thirty-five years later, there's gonna be rebellion.

The Romans are gonna put down the rebellion and destroy the temple.

The gold that was placed in the temple is gonna be melted out.

They're gonna turn every rock because the gold is seeping through the rocks, they're gonna destroy every single stone of the temple, it's gonna be ripped apart.

You go to Jerusalem today.

You can find ruins from when the temple was destroyed.

The rocks are all turned over on top of each other, and the city's just built up on top of it.

They destroyed every single brick on that temple, it was destroyed.

The curtain was ripped, the bricks were torn down, the whole false religious system was stopped and demolished by God's judgment.

That's disruptive.

But that's not the end of the parable.

It's gonna be taken from you and given to others.

Well, who's the others?

I think it's first and foremost the disciples.

They're the ones who are gonna start preaching the gospel.

Remember what Jesus told Peter?

Who do people say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

Peter says, You are the Christ, and Jesus says, You are the rock.

And upon you I will build my church.

Jesus, of course, is the cornerstone.

The apostles are the foundation.

The church is built on top of that.

Jesus was rejected, he becomes the cornerstone.

Now the apostles build it up.

It's the preaching of Peter that becomes the apostolic foundation of the church.

You see this in the book of Acts.

In the book of Acts, the church begins.

It's launching in Acts chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit comes in a dwelling people, and everything is different now.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The Holy Spirit does not come and fill the Pharisees.

Nicodemus in John 3 says, What does it take to go to heaven?

And Jesus says, You've got to be born again.

And Nicodemus can't understand that.

He's a Pharisee.

He needs a new birth.

I think Nicodemus did come to faith, but not because he was a Pharisee.

You don't see him in a position of leadership in the church, do you?

In the whole New Testament?

Is he mentioned again?

In the church age, do you ever hear Nicodemus pastoring a church somewhere?

He didn't promote from being Pharisee now that he's saved.

He's just going to slide on into religious leadership in the church.

This is a brand new thing.

It was taken from the religious leaders of Israel.

Their system was shut down and it was replaced with the apostolic preaching of the apostles who were nobodies, uneducated, and they became the foundation of the church.

They're the foundation of it.

That means it's new.

You don't come to a building that has been around for a thousand years and say, I'm going to renew the foundation to put the old building back on top of it.

This is a new building.

Half of them were fishermen.

Think of how the religious system of Israel operated.

You had to be educated, to be a rabbi, a scribe, a Pharisee, you had to have a position of power and influence.

Jesus revokes it from them and gives it to fishermen.

That's insane.

You know, through the whole book of Acts, I mean sorry, through all the gospels, you don't see a single sermon by an apostle recorded that I can think of.

You know, you don't hear any of their preaching.

They did preach.

They went and, you know, went on preaching tours and such, they did stuff, but you don't see a single one of them recorded.

And the book of Acts rolls around, the church begins, and it's all about their preaching.

Acts chapter 4, they're just thrown in jail.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

They go out, they preach again.

Acts chapter 4, they get arrested again.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 4, verse 13.

Acts 4:13

Remember what the religious leaders who lost everything?

Remember what they say when they see Peter and John out there preaching again?

They were astonished, is Acts chapter 4, verse 13, astonished by the boldness of Peter and John, and they perceived that they were, do you remember the word?

Acts 4:13

Uneducated.

Man, I would I wish I would have been in that religious leaders' meeting right there.

There's dudes out there healing the blind, healing the lame, thousands of people getting saved and baptized in the little mikvas out there, and it's just it's just nothing like this has ever happened before.

And the rabbis and the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin are huddled up in their office looking at the window, seeing blind people singing and lame people walking, and everybody worshiping Jesus, and they're like, but those guys, where did they go to school?

What rabbi trained them?

They didn't graduate from Harvard.

Who authorized them to preach?

No, and they were astonished at it.

They were common men, they said, from Galilee.

But then they remembered that they had been with Jesus.

And then out verse 14, out the window, they see somebody who is healed standing next to him.

They're like, well, great.

They don't even have a degree from an accredited institution, but they can heal people.

So they ask, what shall we do with these men?

Because it's to the point, I love the phrase Acts 4, verse 17, it's to the point where we can no longer deny this is happening.

Acts 4:17

It's hilarious.

They went to all the wrong schools, couldn't even read.

They're writing the New Testament.

Overnight.

What changed?

Acts chapter 2 happened.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The Holy Spirit came.

The church is launched.

The church is not an expansion of what was going on in Israel.

It's a radical disruption to what had happened before.

This is a brand new thing that upends all of the chronological history of Israel.

That you're going through the Bible, prophet after prophet, beaten, beaten, beaten.

The sun comes and killed, and now those who are in charge are pushed aside, turned upside down, replaced with fishermen, people from Galilee, whose preaching rocks the world.

That's how the parable ends.

What are the Pharisees going to do with that?

Well, they could repent.

That's not in their wheelhouse.

They could bow the knee to Jesus himself from Nazareth, nothing good from Nazareth.

He didn't go to school anywhere.

Not gonna happen.

And so they bring the parable to fruition without recognizing that they're the ones who think they'll have the vineyard when they kill the landowner, when they kill the heir.

So they do it.

They murder him, and the landlord comes and crushes them and throws them out.

The temple is destroyed, the church is launched with the apostles.

It's all new.

What should your takeaway be from this?

First of all, marvel at the newness of the church.

Marvel at just how insane it is what happens here the last few days of Jesus' life.

He'd been planning this for years, of course.

Jesus has been planning this from eternity, but in time, he's recruited these apostles and he's discipling these apostles for a couple years to hand over the keys to them.

It's like they learned to drive yesterday and they get the keys to a fighter jet today.

That's just beyond, beyond crazy.

So marvel at that.

And second, be humble.

Be humble.

If some of the branches are broken off, and you a wild olive shoot.

So if the branches of the Jewish leadership are broken off, then you a Gentile grafted in, don't be arrogant towards the branches.

Remember, the branches don't support the root.

It's the other way around.

The history of God's redemption to the Old Testament covenants has led to Christ.

The notion of salvation by faith.

Go back to Abraham.

Go back to Abel, who had faith in his own sacrifice.

Put to death for it.

Recognize that the Old Testament history fuels the gospel that you believe, but marvel at the newness of it.

And then be humble.

Those branches were broken off because they didn't believe.

Those branches were broken off because they became focused on their own position, their own authority, their own education.

Those branches became broken off because they never produced spiritual fruit.

So if you receive the gospel and you're grafted in and you don't produce spiritual fruit, what do you think will happen to you?

It's the same question again.

Romans 11, verse 20.

Romans 11:20

Don't become proud, but stand in awe.

God didn't spare the national, the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

Lord, we're thankful that you brought the gospel to the world in a disruptive way.

You turned the world upside down to borrow a phrase people used against Paul.

Paul was a Phariseean yet he counted it nothing.

All loss.

All loss.

You've been kind to us through the gospel.

We see this parable and marvel at your gentleness towards the disciples, the apostles, your boldness towards the Pharisees and the false teachers.

You warned the apostles, you took them aside in the temple, said, False teachers will come.

The temple will be destroyed, the rocks will come down, and then you unleash them on the world.

So we're thankful for Peter and John and all of their boldness.

It was an insult that was used against them in Acts chapter 4, but we receive it as a compliment.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

You made them bold, uneducated, but bold.

They'd been with you, they were new men.

We received the gospel written by them, of course.

We received the New Testament, their letters, but it's our faith.

We're thankful for it in the name of Christ, we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.