MATTHEW 21:33-44
Deuteronomy 4:8 And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?
I have done some very exciting research on some of the ancient law codes and I can assure you that they cannot even compare to the law that God gave to Israel and us.
The original law code can be seen in the Louvre. The Iraqi museum displays a replica.
But these laws favour the elite and the rights of the kings. They are exclusive not inclusive as the law of God.
Here at Ur they worshipped the moon god Nanna and his daughter Inanna.
The ziggurat at Ur was built by king Urnamu who also developed a law code.
Abraham did not obey the laws of Urnamu where is clashed with the law of God. listen what Moses wrote about this issue:
Genesis 26:5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
GOD’S DREAM FOR ISRAEL SHOULD THEY OBEY HIS LAW
The children of Israel were to occupy all the territory which God appointed them. Those nations that rejected the worship and service of the true God were to be dispossessed. But it was God’s purpose that by the revelation of His character through Israel men should be drawn unto Him.
To all the world the gospel invitation was to be given. Through the teaching of the sacrificial service Christ was to be uplifted before the nations, and all who would look unto Him should live.
All who, like Rahab the Canaanite, and Ruth the Moabitess, turned from idolatry to the worship of the true God, were to unite themselves with His chosen people. As the numbers of Israel increased, they were to enlarge their borders, until their kingdom should embrace the world.
God desired to bring all peoples under His merciful rule. He desired that the earth should be filled with joy and peace. He created man for happiness, and He longs to fill human hearts with the peace of heaven. He desires that the families below shall be a symbol of the great family above.
But Israel did not fulfill God’s purpose. The Lord declared,
Jeremiah 2:21 Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me Into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?
“Israel is an empty vine, he brings forth fruit unto himself.” Hosea 10:1.
Isaiah 5:3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
Isaiah 5:4 What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, Did it bring forth wild grapes?
Isaiah 5:5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
Isaiah 5:6 I will lay it waste; It shall not be pruned or dug, But there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds That they rain no rain on it.”
Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
The Lord had through Moses set before His people the result of unfaithfulness. By refusing to keep His covenant, they would cut themselves off from the life of God, and His blessing could not come upon them.
Deuteronomy 8:11 “Beware,” said Moses, ‘’That you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today,
Deuteronomy 8:12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;
Deuteronomy 8:13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;
Deuteronomy 8:14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
Deuteronomy 8:17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
Deuteronomy 8:19 Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.
Deuteronomy 8:20 As the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God.
The warning was not heeded by the Jewish people. They forgot God, and lost sight of their high privilege as His representatives. The blessings they had received brought no blessing to the world. All their advantages were appropriated for their own glorification.
They robbed God of the service He required of them, and they robbed their fellow men of religious guidance and a holy example. Like the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, they followed out every imagination of their evil hearts.
Thus, they made sacred things appear a farce, saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these” (Jeremiah 7:4), while at the same time they were misrepresenting God’s character, dishonouring His name, and polluting His sanctuary.
The husbandmen who had been placed in charge of the Lord’s vineyard were untrue to their trust. The priests and teachers were not faithful instructors of the people. They did not keep before them the goodness and mercy of God and His claim to their love and service.
These husbandmen sought their own glory. They desired to appropriate the fruits of the vineyard. It was their study to attract attention and homage to themselves.
The guilt of these leaders in Israel was not like the guilt of the ordinary sinner. These men stood under the most solemn obligation to God. They had pledged themselves to teach a
“Thus says the Lord” and to bring strict obedience into their practical life.
Instead of doing this they were perverting the Scriptures. They laid heavy burdens upon men, enforcing ceremonies that reached to every step in life.
The people lived in continual unrest, for they could not fulfill the requirements laid down by the rabbis. As they saw the impossibility of keeping man-made commandments, they became careless regarding the commandments of God.
The Lord had instructed His people that He was the owner of the vineyard, and that all their possessions were given them in trust to be used for Him. But the priests and teachers did not perform the work of their sacred office as if they were handling the property of God.
They were systematically robbing Him of the means and facilities entrusted to them for the advancement of His work. Their covetousness and greed caused them to be despised even by the heathen.
Thus the Gentile world was given occasion to misinterpret the character of God and the laws of His kingdom.
With a father’s heart, God bore with His people. He pleaded with them by mercies given and mercies withdrawn. Patiently He set their sins before them, and in forbearance waited for their acknowledgment.
Prophets and messengers were sent to urge God’s claim upon the husbandmen; but instead of being welcomed, they were treated as enemies. The husbandmen persecuted and killed them. God sent still other messengers, but they received the same treatment as the first, only that the husbandmen showed still more determined hatred.
As a last resource, God sent His Son, saying, “They will reverence My Son.” But their resistance had made them vindictive, and they said among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance.” We shall then be left to enjoy the vineyard, and to do as we please with the fruit.
The Jewish rulers did not love God; therefore, they cut themselves away from Him, and rejected all His overtures for a just settlement. Christ, the Beloved of God, came to assert the claims of the Owner of the vineyard. And what happened? The husbandmen treated Him with marked contempt, saying, We will not have this man to rule over us.
They envied Christ’s beauty of character. His manner of teaching was far superior to theirs, and they dreaded His success. He reproved them, unveiling their hypocrisy, and showing them the sure results of their course of action.
This stirred them to madness. They smarted under the rebukes they could not silence. They hated the high standard of righteousness which Christ continually presented. They saw that His teaching was placing them where their selfishness would be uncloaked, and they determined to kill Him.
They hated His example of truthfulness and piety and the elevated spirituality revealed in all He did. His whole life was a reproof to their selfishness, and when the final test came, the test which meant obedience unto eternal life or disobedience unto eternal death, they rejected the Holy One of Israel.
When they were asked to choose between Christ and Barabbas, they cried out, “Release unto us Barabbas!” Luke 23:18.
And when Pilate asked, “What shall I do then with Jesus?” they cried fiercely, “Let Him be crucified.” Matthew 27:22.
“Shall I crucify your King?” Pilate asked, and from the priests and rulers came the answer, “We have no king but Caesar.” John 19:15.
When Pilate washed his hands, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person,” the priests joined with the ignorant mob in declaring passionately, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Matthew 27:24, 25.
Thus, the Jewish leaders made their choice. Their decision was registered in the book which John saw in the hand of Him that sat upon the throne, the book which no man could open.
In all its vindictiveness this decision will appear before them in the day when this book is unsealed by the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
The Jewish people cherished the idea that they were the favourites of heaven, and that they were always to be exalted as the church of God. They were the children of Abraham, they declared, and so firm did the foundation of their prosperity seem to them that they defied earth and heaven to dispossess them of their rights.
But by lives of unfaithfulness, they were preparing for the condemnation of heaven and for separation from God.
In the parable of the vineyard, after Christ had portrayed before the priests their crowning act of wickedness, He put to them the question, “When the Lord therefore of the vineyard come, what will he do unto those husbandmen?”
The priests had been following the narrative with deep interest, and without considering the relation of the subject to themselves, they joined with the people in answering, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out His vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render Him the fruits in their seasons.”
Unwittingly they had pronounced their own doom. Jesus looked upon them, and under His searching gaze they knew that He read the secrets of their hearts. His divinity flashed out before them with unmistakable power. They saw in the husbandmen a picture of themselves, and they involuntarily exclaimed, “God forbid!”
Solemnly and regretfully Christ asked, “Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
Christ would have averted the doom of the Jewish nation if the people had received Him. But envy and jealousy made them implacable, unforgiving. They determined that they would not receive Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.
They rejected the Light of the world, and thenceforth their lives were surrounded with darkness as the darkness of midnight. The doom foretold came upon the Jewish nation.
Their own fierce passions, uncontrolled, wrought their ruin. In their blind rage they destroyed one another. Their rebellious, stubborn pride brought upon them the wrath of their Roman conquerors.
Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple laid in ruins, and its site ploughed like a field. The children of Judah perished by the most horrible forms of death. Millions were sold, to serve as bondmen in heathen lands.
As a people the Jews had failed of fulfilling God’s purpose, and the vineyard was taken from them. The privileges they had abused, the work they had slighted, was entrusted to others.
What are we going to do in allowing God to continually give the victory of our selfishness? Matthew 21:33 “Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.
SUMMERISE
God’s eternal purpose will triumph in spite of man’s unfaithfulness.
Israel had forfeited her role as the chosen. May this not be the case of the new spiritual Israel.