The Wicked Tenant Farmers

Mark 12:1-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 2, 2020.

We live in a day and age where there are difficult tensions on every hand.  The parable that we will read today reminds us that not all who claim to be God’s ministers and His people actually are.  The world takes advantage of this to accuse the Church and project it as irrelevant and non-essential.  Thus, true believers have to wrestle with the reality that not all who say, “Lord, Lord…” belong to Jesus, and yet the only hope for those who don’t believe in Jesus is to hear his Gospel and connect in a fruitful life with him and his people.

Two things must happen in these final hours of our work in this Age of Grace.  First, believers must get serious about having a living connection to Jesus, the Lord of Life.  We cannot afford to superficially participate in the things of God, and this goes for the average Christian and Christian leaders.  Second, we must be more convinced than ever that unbelievers will perish if they don’t hear the Gospel, believe on Jesus, and connect to his people.

This is a day that calls for boldness, but not a boldness in wickedness.  Rather, we need a humble boldness that does the work that Jesus has sent us to do though the whole world (other “believers” included) rails against us.

Jesus teaches with a parable

We are entering a section of Mark that apparently lasts for several days (note that Mark 14:1 says, “after two days”).  During this time, Jesus is teaching in the temple compound and interacting with the incensed religious leaders.  The main point of this parable of the Wicked Tenant Farmers is concerning the religious leaders.  However, if we take this parable and link it with the many other Scriptures that speak of God’s vineyard and spiritual fruit, we will find that it explodes with much more meaning and teaching than what is presented in our passage.

Now, parables teach a lesson about spiritual things by using the natural things of this life.  If Jesus were teaching today, he would no doubt have a parable about wicked property managers, hedge fund managers, or even rush hour commutes.  The natural story provides an illustration to the spiritual message it underscores.  Let’s look at the different elements of this story.

The owner is God.  He is the one who called Moses to co-labor with him in planting Israel in the promised land and setting up its spiritual care.

The vineyard is Israel as a nation.  Israel represented the visible kingdom of God (i.e. what God is doing in the visible realm).  Each person is a branch on the natural vine of Israel, but can only be fruitful if they are connected to the spiritual vine, which is God.

The vinedressers or tenant farmers are the spiritual leaders of Israel.  Vinedresser or tenant farmer translate a Greek word that literally means ground/earth worker.  It is where we get the English name George.  Since this is in the context of grape vines, these are the workers who tend the vines, harvest its fruit, and manufacture its wine.  Everything they do should be about making the vine healthy and fruitful.  The spiritual leaders are, of course, vines themselves.  Israel was not made for them and it did not belong to them.  They were simply serving Israel so that it could bear the fruit God intended.

The servants sent by the owner are the prophets of God.  God had been faithful to send servants who were inspecting the fruitfulness of the leader’s work.  Historically, the prophets were treated poorly and shamefully.  There does seem to be an increase in the wicked treatment of these prophets, but the final statement is that many other servants were sent, some beaten, and some killed.  The point is that this owner has been extremely patient and forgiving with these leaders of Israel, and the leaders have been extremely wicked.

The son of the owner is Jesus.  Here, Jesus presents himself as a unique servant.  The other servants were not biologically connected to the owner, but the son is.  Of course, outside of the analogy, God is spirit and thus, the biological should not be placed upon the relationship between Jesus and the Father.  Jesus is the One and Only unique Son of God.  Yes, we have been given the right to be called Sons of God, but that is in the sense of an adoption, a legal action.  However, Jesus is a Son of God by right of his being.  He alone is of the same being as the Father and has existed with Him from eternity past in an eternal unity.  The owner sends his son with the hope that they would respect him above the other servants.

The killing of the son is the coming crucifixion, only days away.  The parable presents that the spiritual leaders will knowingly kill the heir so that they can have the land to themselves.  Thus, they are greedy, unwilling to surrender their control over God’s people, and wicked.

We should not miss another layer to this parable.  The devil and his angels will also be guilty of this in the crucifixion.  They too are usurpers who attempt to lord their power over humans to the exclusion of God.  They will find themselves in the same boat as the first century leaders of Israel.

Jesus gives the moral lesson

The story ends at verse 8.  In some ways, this story is a moral obscenity that doesn’t need too much explanation.  However, mankind is making the same mistakes today.  The leaders of this world, both religious and secular, are seeking to kill the concept of God so greatly that the only thing left will be for the people of the world to look to them as gods.  In a sense, they desire to harness the people of the world for their own plans and ignore the rightful claims of God who is the true owner.

The main lesson that Jesus intends is brought to the forefront by the question, “What will the owner of the vineyard do?”  God would destroy the spiritual leaders of Israel and get new ones who would do the job righteously. 

Jesus is warning that a destructive event is on the horizon that would wipe out these spiritual leaders who were confronting him.  The priestly tribe of Levi and the high-priestly line of Aaron were going to be rejected with new priests and ministers taking their place.  We should always remember that no one is indispensable among God’s people.  It belongs to Him.  John the Baptist warned his generation that God was able to raise up children of Israel from the stones on the ground if He needed.  If we use God’s people and institutions for our own purposes and abuse the true believers then we too will find a destructive event in our future in which we perish and God raises up others to take our place.

Jesus then reminds them that this had been foretold in Scripture (Psalm 118:22-23).  By the way, this is the Messianic Psalm that the crowds were quoting at the triumphal entry just days before this.  The picture is that the master builders will reject the cornerstone sent to them by God.  However, God will overrule their rejection and make him the chief cornerstone. 

We actually have a different analogy or picture that is one of a stone building.  The Son of God is the critical stone in the building of God, but the project workers are rejecting him.  The spiritual leaders were supposed to help Israel connect to the Son of God as the true vine of Israel.  In a sense, Jesus had always been the spiritual vine of Israel, but now he would walk among them.  Instead, the spiritual leaders were rejecting the true vine and keeping the people connected to them, or even worse, to an evil spiritual vine.

Psalm 118 then pictures believers rejoicing in the marvelous work of God overturning the leaders, and shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!”  Isaiah 28:16 picks up this same theme and declares that God Himself will set His precious cornerstone in the face of the rebellious leaders.  This also connects with the many passages that refer to a stumbling stone (see Isaiah 8:14).  Daniel 2:45 pictures a stone cut out by the hands of God, which crushes the beast kingdoms and fills the earth.  In 1 Peter 2:4-6, Peter pictures the rebuilding of a spiritual temple upon Jesus with those who believe upon him.

All the prophets had warned of this spiritual malpractice by the leaders of Israel, and the destruction that awaited them.  Thus, the leaders of Israel had no excuse.  God had warned them.  If this is true of them then what about Christian leaders?  If the leaders of Israel were without excuse then we are doubly without excuse because we have the Scriptures and the example of what God did to those first century spiritual leaders.  Christian leaders need to make sure they are not guilty of these same things “in the name of the Lord.”

This parable is also told in Matthew 21.  In verses 43-44, Matthew records some extra statements of Jesus that are not found in Mark 12.  Verse 43 says, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”  Jesus speaks of a new nation because the problem was not just with the leaders of Israel.  The vineyard analogy goes back to Isaiah chapter 5, where the prophet says that the vineyard itself is bearing wild grapes that cannot be used.  Therefore, the vineyard itself will be destroyed.  The destruction of national Israel within 40 years of the rejection of Jesus becomes an event in which God removes Israel as a nation and raises up a new nation, the Church.  Branches of national Israel who believed upon Jesus were transplanted throughout the world with spiritual leaders that would be both Jew and Gentile, under the everlasting covenant of the Messiah.  This is what Peter is talking about in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light!”  It is a nation that is not of one ethnicity, or of a particular geography, but a spiritual nation connected by the blood of Jesus and our capital city, the New Jerusalem, in heaven.  This new nation would receive the remnant of the old vineyard and increase it.

Clearly, the leaders of the Church have not all learned the lessons of the past, and not all Christians, who are not leaders, either.  Wake up Church of God!

Matthew 21:44 says, “And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”  There are only two options when it comes to Jesus, God’s cornerstone.  You will either fall upon him broken, or you will be crushed by him and ground into powder.

The first is a picture of a humbled person who is broken by the recognition of their sins.  They are falling on Jesus in repentance and responding to the Spirit of God to follow Him.  Though they are broken, he will be their healer.  The second is the picture of the wicked person who will be broken on the judgment day.  For most, that will be when they stand before him in judgment at the Great White Throne.  For some, that will be at the Second Coming when Jesus comes to cast out the usurpers of the earth and bring in everlasting righteousness. 

How about you today?  Are you casting yourself upon Jesus in humble repentance?  Are you connecting to him as the true spiritual vine, and drawing life?  Are you bearing the fruit that God desires, or is it only wild grapes?  This world needs believers who have the true fruit of God, so that they can have a chance of avoiding the coming day of God’s wrath upon the wicked.  May God help us to live for Jesus!

Wicked Tenant Farmers audio

The Authority of Jesus

Mark 11:27-33.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on July 26, 2020.

With the advent of this summer’s protests and the consequent actions, the question of authority is a timely one.  The First Amendment of the US Constitution recognizes the God-given right of every citizen to peaceably assemble in order to give voice to their concerns, and to ask for redress of their grievances- what the Bible would call justice.  Thus, the founding generation saw God as the one who authorizes our right to do so, not the government.

However, if God has authorized the action that you are taking then you had better do it in a way that is pleasing to him because you will be accountable to him.  This is why our founders added the word “peaceably.”  Those authorized by God must work peaceably in this age of his grace.

The same can be said for police officers who are to protect and defend the public good.  It is God who tells men that they are to uphold righteousness within their nations.  Each nation is responsible to set up the means of authorizing individuals to serve as police, and as judges, so that righteousness may flourish.  Thus, there is a divine and human aspect to their authority.  Again, let us not forget that an authorized person must act in accordance with and under the direction of that which authorizes them.  Of course, this all applies as well to protesters as well.

Today, we are going back to the week leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus, and to the question of just what authorized Jesus to do what he did.

The religious leaders question the authority of Jesus

Just the day before our passage, Jesus had driven the vendors and money changers out of the temple compound.  The chief priests, scribes, and the elders of Israel were probably in shock at the time, but they have had their private discussions overnight and they are determined to publicly confront Jesus.  Just who does he think he is?  No doubt, they were watching for him to come into the temple area that day.

When he does, they are quick to confront him with a two-pronged question that is ultimately one.  By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?  Now, the immediate context would suggest that this is not about his itinerant teaching in Israel and the working of miracles.  Rather, they are questioning him about his right to interfere in the operations of the temple and to make it his public place of teaching.  You see, they were the ones who had authorized the vendors and money changers to be there in the first place.  Jesus had not so much challenged their authority, but rather, the particular things that they were using their authority to authorize.  They legitimately sat in the seat of Moses, but they were not making legitimate judgments and decisions.  They were unwilling to receive the public rebuke and were attempting to turn the tables on Jesus, so to speak.

Just because a person holds a position that is legitimately authorized by humans, it does not mean that they are actually authorized.  In Jeremiah 23:32, God rebukes the false prophets of that day. 

‘“Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” says the Lord, “and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness.  Yet, I did not send them or command them; therefore, they shall not profit this people at all,” says the LORD.’ (NKJV)

Whether some of these guys falsely obtained their positions, or they held them legitimately, they were at the least misusing their authority.  God was not pleased with their judgments.  All authority in this world is ultimately answerable to God for its actions.  Those who questioned Jesus did not realize that they should have been asking themselves that question regarding each decision that they were making.  It is precisely their failure in this area that made it necessary for God to send His Son to set things right.

It can look like Jesus is avoiding the question, but notice that he actually promises to answer it, if they will answer his question first.  “Was John’s baptism from heaven or men?”  This is essentially the same question that they were asking, but regarding John the Baptist.  Who gave him the authority to do what he had done?  This is a masterful turn of the tables because they are assuming to be the proper authorities and are in judgment of him.  Jesus essentially says, “Let’s see if you can judge the case of John the Baptist before you judge mine.”

Now, John’s ministry was far less controversial than the ministry of Jesus, but it was adversarial to the religious leaders nonetheless.  They had not authorized John to baptize people in the Jordan River.  He seemed to be skipping around their domain at the temple.  John even publicly declared that they were a brood of vipers who needed to flee the wrath that was coming (Matthew 3:7).  John 1:19-28 gives us a picture of these religious leaders examining John the Baptist.  Jesus is merely asking them to publicly declare the conclusion of their investigations into John.  Was following himself, or another man, or had God sent him?

There is another aspect to this.  It was John who publicly declared that he saw the Holy Spirit come upon Jesus, and that he was the one that he had been promising would come after him, the Messiah.  If John was authorized then it was most likely that Jesus was too.

It appears that they have a sort of huddle to determine their answer.  However, they are in a predicament.  If they say that John was authorized by heaven (God) then Jesus will ask them why they didn’t believe him, and embrace his ministry.  Yet, on the other hand, if they say that John was not authorized by God then they feared what the people would say and do because it was popularly felt that John was a true prophet of God. 

Here, we see part of the problem with all authorities and their authorizing mechanisms.  They typically fear people more than they fear God.  They rely upon the power of their position, but they always realize that if enough people reject them then they will lose it.  What do powerful people who do not fear God do in such circumstances?  They operate behind the scenes and in the dark to manipulate the passions of the crowd.  O, Christian, let us not be caught up in the manipulations of wicked people, who have no fear of God, but rather, let us hear the crying of the voice in the wilderness.

“Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth…”  (Isaiah 40:3 NKJV)

There are a lot of mountains that are yet to be brought low, and a lot of crooked people, both in leadership and among the people.  God has a day of dealing with such, if they refuse to repent, but let us be about our Father’s business!

The leaders decide to say that they do not know by what authority John did what he did.  Jesus then responds that neither will he answer their question.  Those who refuse to give sound judgments do not deserve an answer because they do not seek truth, but are only serving themselves.  Very few people in our day and age are actually seeking truth.  Those who start out to do so are often hijacked by false prophets and the false wisdom of this age.  If you are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and if you are in a daily relationship with God through prayer, studying the scriptures and doing the commands of Christ, then you will be able to navigate these times of peril in which we live.

Was Jesus authorized?  Completely!  The Scriptures foretold his coming, and it was even testified by Moses who said that a prophet would come that would be like him, raising up the house of God.  They would need to listen to him.  The prophet John had publicly revealed who Jesus was.  The Spirit of God had powerfully worked through his ministry.  He was the Son of God who had come to that which was his own.  He was the Good Shepherd seeking out the lost sheep of Israel before the wolves would come and have their way.  He is the only way to the Father by which all men must be saved!  Yes, Jesus was authorized, but they refused to accept it because they loved lies rather than truth.

How about me?  How about you?  May God help us to love truth more than lies, even when the truth publicly reveals that I have not been as good as I have pretended before the world.  Such a person will find Jesus and in him find eternal life!

Authority of Jesus Audio

Jesus Teaches on Prayer

Mark 11:22-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on July 19, 2020.

Last week, we talked about the situation where Jesus had cursed a fig tree and within 24-hours it was dead down to the roots.  There, we talked about the symbolic importance of what Jesus did.

Today, we are going to look at what Jesus told his disciples immediately after Peter expressed amazement that the bush was so dead only one day after Jesus spoke to it.  Peter’s amazement is itself a demonstration of his ignorance at how powerful prayer truly is.  Thus, Jesus takes advantage of the opportunity to hammer home just how powerful prayer is to the person who has faith.

We should have faith

Jesus does emphasize the faith of the person praying, but even more critical is his emphasis on whom our faith is based.  My faith must be based upon God alone.  God is the foundation of our faith, and prayer is a dependence upon the power of God.

People who do not pray do not believe that they need God’s help.  It is also possible that they may think they are too spiritual to ask God for things, but the prior reason is the most typical.  Such people will attempt to gain the goal or target that they desire by their own abilities.

Here is where we should recognize that it is unbiblical not to pray, and yet just as unbiblical to sit back and do nothing while asking God to do everything.  Instead, we are to do what we can while praying for God’s help in those things we can’t.

To emphasize the critical nature of having our faith based solely on God, here are some examples in Scripture.  When Jesus tells us that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, he follows it up with the statement that with God all things are possible.  Thus, he is not impressing on us that rich people cannot be saved, but that it can only happen with God’s help- this is actually true of all of us.  This is the same message that the angel Gabriel gave to Mary when she questioned how she would have a baby- she was still a virgin.  The angel tells her that with God nothing will be impossible (Luke 1:37). 

The same God who created the universe is the Heavenly Father who watches over us.  His possibilities go far beyond our impossibilities.  He did not intend us to do life without Him.  Prayer is our ultimate birthright, to cry out to our Father for help, the one to whom all things are possible (that conform to his character, of course).

In case the teaching hasn’t sunk in, Jesus gives his disciples an illustration that is much greater than praying that no one will ever eat fruit from a particular fig tree ever again.  Praying that a mountain be removed and cast into the sea represents an extreme fantastic prayer that seems impossible.  There is an added symbol to this prayer because mountains are used as metaphors for political powers and empires, such as the Roman Empire.  It is the extreme nature of the request that highlights how unable we are, and yet how able God is.  By definition, God has the power to literally cast a mountain into the sea.  Yet, why would I ever need a real mountain thrown into the sea, and who will the resulting tsunami imperil?  A literal mountain is not the “impossible thing” that we typically need removed from our way, or life.  Instead, it represents an impossibility of any nature for which we would need God’s help.  This extreme example is intended to stretch our faith to the point that we stop limiting God just because we are limited.  Did not God literally move the waters of the Red Sea aside so that millions of Israelites could escape Pharaoh’s army?  So, can He not take care of my problem?  Of course, He can!

It is here that Jesus adds the issue of doubt.  We must not doubt God’s power, but neither should we doubt His care and concern for us.  It is one thing to have enough faith to pray a prayer, but we should not doubt that God will do it.  Granted, doubt is not the only issue here, but it is a critical one.  It might be better for us to ask the question, “Why do I doubt that God would answer this prayer?”  We will come back to this, but doubt is a huge reason why many people have quit praying, or never started in the first place.  We start doubting that God will do anything about our request.  He may help others, we tell ourselves, but I doubt that He is willing to help me.

In verse 24, Jesus gives us a summation of what he is saying.  When you pray asking for something, you should believe that you are receiving it, and it will be yours.  Another way to say this is that we should believe that God is taking care of it and that we will experience His answer to our prayer.  There is a certain load and burden in life that we all need to learn to carry, but there are things that are too heavy of any of us.  Prayer is intended by God to be the place where these overly heavy burdens are moved off of our shoulders and onto God’s  O, what joy we will experience when we learn to put those things we can’t change onto the shoulders of the one who cares for us (1 Peter 5:6-7).

This is not an exhaustive summation on prayer, but we need to let it sink in on its own merits.  Once that is done, we can move on to the other lessons concerning prayer.  This summation does beg two questions.  First, what impossible things should I be praying for that actually need removed from my life?  Second, what is the source of my doubt about it?

We must deal with our sins

In verse 25, it may appear that Jesus is switching the subject, but in reality, he is still teaching on prayer.  The sentence is introduced with the connective word “and,” and it involves a particular thing that affects our prayers, sin.

Jesus brings up the heart issues of what other people have done to me.  It can be hard for me to forgive those who sin against me and this becomes a source of problems for our prayers.  It is in the heart that I am to believe without doubting.  Yet, this very heart is often full of hurts and wounds that I have received from others.  Many people stop praying because they are angry that God has allowed other people to hurt them.  Technically, these are the sins of others, but they have intersected with my life and infected my heart.  We could say that they are other people’s sins that are now stuck in my heart.  Believers must learn to deal properly with those sins.  Harboring a grudge, hurt, or anger towards another person, and refusing to forgive them, becomes an obstacle to answered prayer.  Why is this?  It may be because it affects my faith and causes doubts, leading me to doubt that God really cares about me.  However, it may be because God is not pleased and wants me to deal with my lack of forgiveness first.  Scripture does not detail the nuts and bolts behind how this affects our prayers, but that it surely does.  Jesus teaches more about this in Matthew 18:15 and the following verses.  This would be good homework for us in the area of dealing with the sins of others against me and forgiving them.

Yet, notice that Jesus does not end up on whether or not our prayer is answered.  A lack of forgiveness for those who sin against me can even become a hindrance to me having my sins forgiven by God.  This is the exact situation that Jesus describes in the parable of The Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:22-34.  The question ceases to be about answered prayer and becomes about my own salvation.  A lack of forgiveness is far more serious for the believer (note the irony in that term) than just having our prayers answered.

Jesus leaves the teaching there.  Perhaps, he felt that it was a sufficient amount for them to contemplate.  However, I want to look at two more areas that God’s Word tells us can be a problem for our prayers.

The first is when we sin against others.   Jesus taught on this in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:23.  When we approach God in prayer and worship, He may bring to our remembrance some way in which we have sinned against others.  We are told to go and make things right with them, and then come back to God.  We may be avoiding things that we don’t want to deal with, or we may be obstinately clinging to our own righteousness in the situation.  Regardless, we are called to be at peace with all people, as much as is possible with us.  Being right is not an excuse to treat someone harshly, in short, to sin against them.  Such, lack of repentance in our heart will cause our prayers to be hindered.  The Apostle Peter gives us a picture of this in 1 Peter 3:7. There, he cautions husbands to dwell in wisdom with their wives, recognizing that, though they have different constitutions and roles, they have the same inheritance as them before God.  Husbands who mistreat their wives (i.e. sin against them) will find that their prayers are hindered by God.  Such hindering is God’s way of getting our attention and challenging us to deal with our sins against others.

James also gives us some more instructions on prayer.  In the first chapter, he too focuses on praying without doubting. 

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But, let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For, let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;” (James 1:5-7 NKJV).

Yet, in chapter 4:1-3, James gives us more teaching about prayer.  Prayers that are focused on our desires for pleasure in this life will also be hindered.

James says that he is writing to people who are relying on clawing their way over others to get what they want instead of praying and believing God.  Their problem is that they are not asking God for help.  They are prayerless.  Yet, in the rare times that they did pray to God, there was a second problem.  Their prayers were focused on their own fleshly pleasures.  James literally says that such prayers are bad or wicked.  God is not our Golden Willy Wonka Ticket to chocolate pleasures, or any others.  A heart that is only filled with the desires and pleasures of this life will also find that its prayers are hindered by God.  Why?  We will find them hindered because we are still pursuing the flesh instead of following the Spirit to become like Jesus.  It is not that God doesn’t want us to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  He made them.  Yet, our flesh hijacks the purpose of our life and makes it all about obtaining as much pleasure as possible.  God in His grace will not answer such prayers.  However, let me give one caution.  Scripture does say that, if we persist in seeking wickedness, God may give us what we seek as a judgment against us.  We must not be deceived.  God will not be mocked.  If you sow to your flesh then from your flesh you will reap destruction, but if you sow to the Spirit of God then you will reap everlasting life (Galatians 6:7-8).

We need to be a people of prayer for our sakes, and for the sake of the lost around us.  Yet, to do so means to be a person who deals with the sin that is in their life on a daily basis.  Then, our hearts can be clean before God and our prayers will not be hindered, but answered.  Amen!

Prayer audio

The Joy of the Lord

This week we had a visiting evangelist, Joe Pyott, who preached on the Joy of the Lord.  There will not be a narrative this week.

Joy audio