The Gospel of Luke 20:1-18 Questions and a parable

This particular passage, Luke 20, 1-18, the timing of this passage is just days before the crucifixion of Christ. Lazarus has already been raised. That has already taken place. The so-called triumphal entry has taken place. The temple has been cleansed. And so all these things have happened.

It is a very short time now in what we're studying in this passage before Christ will be arrested and put on a cross. Very shortly the Last Supper is going to happen, a Passover observance will be turned into the first Lord's Table. And as we saw in the elective right beforehand, what was said there was actually a lot of wedding ceremony words and that sort of thing, betrothal words. And so Then one of the things that's also happening at this time, because it had long been the plan, relatively speaking, for the leaders of the Jews to kill Jesus.

Jesus had been telling his disciples, but the leaders are kind of getting desperate because they're trying to find a good reason that they can bring capital punishment charges against Jesus here. but they haven't been able to come up with something that will snag him. And as we mentioned last week, you can imagine how difficult it is to surprise somebody who knows everything. He knows what you're thinking, he knows what you're trying to do, he knows what you're going to think about. So they have a really tough time surprising him, and indeed that has to be bothering them.

There appears to be still some substantial support for Jesus and for John the Baptist among the people here. One of the things that's kind of curious is John the Baptist, even though by now he's been dead for some time, there's still a support for him and people remember him and they still consider him a prophet. And so we're going to see that that's a factor in things here. The leaders of the Jews know where there is support for Jesus, and they know where there's support for John the Baptist as well. They're very conscious of it. They're concerned about it, in fact, in being able to carry out the plans that they have for Jesus.

So here's Luke 20, verses 1 and 2. One of the days while he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted him. And they spoke, saying to him, Tell us by what authority you are doing these things, or who is the one who gave you this authority?" So, you have the representatives from the key priests and the elders, right?

So, anyway, yeah. Okay. Then, Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyards and colonnades, and he often did this, and so that was his custom. And when he came to Jerusalem, and that was in fact the custom of a number of the teachers and rabbis and that sort of thing, where they would come into the temple courtyard and teach. He was also preaching in the temple courtyards and colonnades.

Now there's a distinction here between teaching and preaching. and this would be an example of what Jesus did that is preaching in the preaching the gospel in John 7 37 and 38 Jesus calls out in the middle of this temple courtyard this open courtyard with Jews present It says, now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out.

So He's calling out loudly, maybe cupping His hands even, so that everybody hears. The great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. So here you have the pattern of teaching on different subjects and also just plain giving out the gospel, telling people directly, if anyone's thirsty, let them come to me and have them drink.

Now, this question is coming from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. In reality, there was only one chief priest at a time, so there weren't chief priests in an official sense. They had one, whoever was the chief priest also had to be approved by the Romans, so the Roman tax, they had veto authority over that. Former chief priests were still honorary chief priests, however, so they would be called chief priests as they are often in the New Testament, in the Gospels. And it was similar to the way we refer to living presidents. It doesn't mean that multiple people are presidents all at once, but someone who is a past president and still living, we would include among living presidents.

Scribes were those who copied scripture, as well as recorded legal documents of various kinds. You know, you'd have things like, okay, here's a will, here's a marriage certificate, here's a death certificate. And so they would be recording these things for the people. And so they knew a lot of what was going on in momentous moments in people's lives. Right? So that would be the scribes.

The scribes were often associated with the Pharisees, and one reason why is because the Pharisees believed in the entire Old Testament, as we call it, and so the scribes would be busier copying all those books than for the Sadducees, who only believed in the first five, sort of. Then there were the elders, and that would refer to other leaders among the Sanhedrin. So, here's the Sanhedrin in a huddle, okay? The Sanhedrin is initially getting together and they're saying, okay, what kind of question can we ask Jesus?

You know when Peyton Manning is holding a menorah, it's getting serious, right? Okay. So these guys are in a huddle, and now they're coming to Jesus after having this huddle, and they say, now we've got the question that will really trick Him. So here's the question that will really trick Jesus. We'll snag Him on this one for sure.

At least that's what they think. So these men who were among the Sanhedrin came to Jesus, likely sending a group, but having one of them as a spokesman. So in other words, instead of sending over 70 men, that would be the total of the Sanhedrin, they've got a group and then they'd have one, maybe two as a spokesman. to be selected. So this thing was all planned out and with strategy and everything. Okay, who's going to go and represent our group? What question are we going to ask? Who's going to be our spokesman? All that would have been planned in advance in this huddle that they had prior to coming up to talk to Jesus.

So they asked Jesus what they thought would be a challenging question. They asked for the authority by which he did the things that he did. And so really they're asking two questions here. One is who did Jesus claim to be? Who do you claim to be? And then who do you represent? Those two questions are built into this challenge that they're attempting to make to Jesus.

And so they figure, now we got him. This will do it. We've got just the question to ask that will get him in deep, deep trouble. So they've been working on this probably for a while to come up with this scheme and this question. So the leaders of the Jews tried to ask tricky questions Actually for several days and we're going to see more of these tricky questions that they think that they've cooked up and are going to really catch Jesus off guard and Really snag him and allow them to press some sort of charges. It'll bring capital punishment and This is all in the week right before Christ is crucified really coming up with these so-called tricky questions if they could get Jesus to make a claim that about who he was that would be considered blasphemy according to the Jews, then they could turn him over to the Romans. But if they could get Jesus to make a claim of authority in conflict with either the Romans or the Jews, it doesn't matter which one, either one will do, then that would be an opportunity to have him put to death. So boy, have they cooked up the tricky question.

So here's Luke 23 and 4. Jesus answered and said to them I will also ask you a question and you tell me was the baptism of John from heaven or from men Now, by the way, it was customary, according to the various debates among the rabbis, to answer a question with a question. So what Jesus was doing was not anything out of sorts in terms of the culture. And so he came back with another question that they couldn't answer that gave him the right to deny answering their question. Right? Okay.

So was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Now, John the Baptist was a problem for these Jewish leaders. Actually, he was two problems for the Jewish leaders. John the Baptist, first of all, had openly called these leaders a brood of vipers, which of course just had warm, fuzzy feelings for them, right? And so they loved being called a brood of vipers.

And so anyway, that was one problem, and everybody heard it, and everybody knew that John the Baptist and these guys were alienated, right? All the people considered John the Baptist to be a prophet. Therefore, he was a prophet sent from God with a message from God. They were all convinced of that. They didn't necessarily catch on to everything, but he was a prophet. And so, to say something bad about him that's just for men, that's a bad thing.

So, Jesus asked these leaders at the baptism of John the Baptist, who openly opposed the Jewish leaders, was from God or from men? Pick one. Now the word heaven here is used, as the Jews often use it, as a euphemism for God. Was it from God or from men is ultimately what he's saying. Essentially, where did the authority come from?

Actually, this euphemism is used throughout the gospel of Matthew, which was written to the Jews. So instead of saying the kingdom of God, they would say the kingdom of heaven, right? Because there was a reluctance among observant Jews to say the name of God for fear that you might mistakenly use the name of God in vain. So they would use the word heaven in place of God.

And actually, we have carried that across to some degree in our culture. Instead of saying, oh God, someone might say, oh heavens. Instead of saying, for God's sake, someone might say, for heaven's sake. So we actually carry that expression over into our own culture. And so Jesus, in asking, is it from heaven or from men, is carrying on that euphemism, essentially saying, is it from God or is it from man? So here's John 1, 19-28, this is where the leaders of the Jews send representatives to John and they're asking similar kinds of questions. Who are you? And this isn't CSI. So this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you?

And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. So he denies being the Christ or the Messiah. And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? And he said to it, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, no. And this would be the prophet that is referred to by Moses. And that actually is referring to Jesus. And they said to him, who are you? So that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as Isaiah the prophet said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees, and they asked him and said to him, Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? And John answered them, saying, I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you do not know. It is he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing." So this kind of, you know, tell us who you are, and where did you come from, and who's behind you, those kinds of questions were the sort of things that they would send a delegation out to do. So what they're doing with Jesus is right in pattern. So what do they do? In Luke 20, Verses 5 and 6, they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say, Why did you not believe him?

But if we say from men, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. So, they get into the huddle again. They know they had better answer this question very carefully, if at all. And John had openly opposed the Jewish leaders, calling them a brood of vipers and such affectionate names, and had not given them the sort of answer they were hoping to get. If they said, as they're reasoning through this here in the huddle, if they said that John the Baptist's baptism was from God, they were in trouble. Why? Because John the Baptist spoke very ill of them, part one. And part two, they didn't believe John the Baptist and follow him, and John would not baptize them.

Either, right? If they said that the baptism of John was from men, they'd be in trouble from the people, because the people considered him a prophet, and saying that a prophet is actually from men would bring a blasphemy charge against them, and they would get stoned to death. So this is a very dangerous question Jesus is asking them. Okay? You see that? These guys are shaking in their boots. Uh-oh! Okay? We had not counted on that counter-question. So what are they going to do They go up.

So the goal was to kill Jesus. And to have Jesus killed, these men in the Jewish huddle were not going to answer that the baptism of John was for men, because that might get them killed. This is the opposite of what we had planned. So anyway, they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Luke 27 and 8. These guys knew that Jesus had put them in a real predicament, the horns of a dilemma as we say. So they answered that they didn't have a play or rather they didn't know from heaven or from men. We don't know.

According to the law of Moses, the leaders of the Jews had a fundamental responsibility to judge whether a prophet was from God or from men. They were under orders from the law of Moses to judge whether a prophet was from God or from men. This is Deuteronomy 13, 1-5 and 18, 20-22. That was their responsibility to do that.

And now they say, I don't know. So in pleading ignorance at this point, they were being negligent, sidestepping responsibility given to them under the law of Moses. Their admission made them guilty. That's going to get a penalty call from the ref, right? That JFL is the Jewish Football League.

It is certainly not, of course, that Jesus didn't know the answer to their questions, okay? Jesus could have said, oh yeah, okay, this is who I am, here's where my authority is from, and all that. It's not that He didn't have an answer for those. He certainly did. More of a clue than they did. But He knew, and in other times and circumstances, He said exactly who He was and by what authority. He spoke and did the things that He did. He knew by whose authority he did and said the things he did because he repeatedly said, it's the Father who has sent me.

But Jesus also that these guys were not asking questions in order to be better informed. They weren't just gathering information. These guys were on a fishing trip, a fatal fishing trip, they were hoping. Now there are going to be other questions from these guys. We're going to see more as we proceed through this week before Christ's crucifixion. These guys have not just asked the only question aimed at Jesus that week. Others will ask questions of Jesus with the same goal in mind, the idea is to kill him.

And you'll have questions from the Sadducees, questions from the Pharisees, In the end, the Jewish leaders will have to convict Jesus not on the answer to the question that they posed to him, but on the basis of false testimony. They're going to have to break the Ten Commandments to get Jesus killed. And they will have to manipulate Pilate in ordering a death sentence on false claims. At first Pilate says, I don't find them guilty, right? And so they have to end up coming up with manipulations to pressure him into it.

Here's Luke 20, verse 9. And he began to tell the people this parable. A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey for a long time. So Jesus turned around and told a parable. And by the way, I don't see in the passage that these guys left. I think they're still there. Turn around and hold a parable that revealed the Jewish leader's intent and what they would in fact do in just a few days.

The parable tells about a man and the vineyard he planted and then rented out to vine growers just before being gone on a journey for quite some time. So the man who planted the vineyard is God the Father. Israel is the vineyard. The vine growers are the leaders of the Jews. That's what the parable begins by representing here. In Luke 20, 10 through 12 then is the next part of the parable.

At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine growers so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard. But the vine growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he proceeded to send another slave, and they beat him also, and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he proceeded to send a third, and this one also they wounded and cast out.

It was customary, and according to the contracts of the day, because this kind of arrangement was actually fairly common, especially in Galilee, to have a kind of a remote owner. an owner who would own the land and then rent it out, but actually either traveled or lived somewhere else, that they pay rent as a percentage of the crops harvested. So that's the way it would be done. And then typically, whoever collected that payment of rent in fruit would then turn around and sell it and then take the money back to the owner. That was the customary arrangement.

So the series of slaves here, three, sent and beaten were to represent the prophets, the Old Testament prophets, many of whom were ill-treated. By the law, three years of possession brought ownership unless contested. So these guys are thinking, ah, you know, maybe we can end up owning this thing, right? The prophets were indeed abused and worse. God sent a line of prophets to the people of Israel.

Some of them we find recorded in the historical books like the court prophet Nathan under David. Others we find wrote books, typically named after them, like Isaiah and Daniel. Daniel's actually not officially a prophet, although he wrote prophetic things. But a lot of the other prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and those, the books are named after them.

So you have both instances. Their messages, however, were often ignored in bringing rebuke and punishment. The exceptions to that would often be court prophets. Isaiah was listened to by Hezekiah. King David listened to Nathan. But often messages to the people were not received well, and the prophet first speaking for the Lord received some kind of a punishment. So Jesus describing the slaves of the vineyard owner as being beaten and refused the fruit that was due them was fitting to the response of Israel to God's prophets who have been sent.

Here's Luke 13.34, which we studied earlier. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. That's a summary statement. How often I wanted to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not have it. So this, Jesus is summarizing the response to the prophets that God had sent.

So Luke 20, 13 and 14, the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. But when the vine growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours. So this was portrayed as a kind of a soliloquy, where the vineyard owner is thinking to himself, and Jesus is expressing that, that he might send his own son, and so that's how Jesus carries it across. He said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.

Luke 4.43. So God the Father had sent his own son. in keeping with the pattern in this parable. So this is the heir, let us kill him. If we get rid of the heir and get him out of the lineup, then we have an even better chance of then inheriting this vineyard for ourselves.

So that's exactly what the leaders of the Jews were going to do in just a few days time. And they would in fact succeed in what they were planning. They would have Jesus killed thinking that's the best thing for them. That reasoning on their part would have horrific consequences for the Jews. These Jewish leaders thought that killing Jesus would pull off exactly what they wanted to pull off. It was in fact what God had planned from before He said, let there be light, from eternity past. Isn't it amazing that the horrible rejection of these men, of Christ as the Messiah, was something that God was going to use for eternal good.

Christ's death had multiple spiritual purposes. When Jesus died on the cross, he died for your sins and for mine, but that was not all that was being accomplished on the cross. There were multiple spiritual purposes. So the cross was a place of massive spiritual accomplishment for Israel, for the church, and for all of mankind for time and all eternity. From Adam to the last person to be born on this planet. Here's Luke 20, 15, and 16.

So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy these vine growers and will give the vineyard to others." And when they heard it, they said, may it never be. So the vine growers threw out the son and killed him.

This is a direct parallel to rejecting the gospel of the kingdom and the Messiah that had been offered to the Jews. Jesus came, bringing the gospel of the kingdom, as did John the Baptist, Jesus presented himself as Israel's Messiah. Had they embraced Jesus, that would have brought the kingdom in much sooner and the church would not have come into existence. Surprising, huh? No church. If they had embraced Christ as the Messiah and accepted the gospel of the kingdom.

But they did not. within only days these very leaders would carry out their diabolical plan that Jesus would be killed however for the eternal benefit of many but with ghastly horrific consequences for the people and nation of Israel the owner representing God the Father as we've said will come to destroy the vine growers representing these Jewish leaders We brought out last week in the 66-70 AD rebellion against Rome, in which Rome harshly suppressed.

It was the end of many things among the Jews. The end of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. The Sadducees, the Essenes, the descendants of Esau, all gone. The court of Shammai, all gone. The genealogical records lost. In great part, the Jews have no idea what tribe they're from. Because all the records were lost, destroyed during that attack. So the response?

May it never be. This was actually a strong rejection of the message Jesus had just told them. Even the message of the parable that Jesus had just told. It's the same set of words that the Apostle Paul uses in Romans and First Corinthians and Galatians for outright rejection of a proposition. Should I sin that grace may abound? May it never be. Same words, okay? And he uses it numerous times in the book of Romans and in 1 Corinthians once and a couple times in Galatians. May it never be what you've just said.

Here's Luke 20, 17. But Jesus looked at them and said, What then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected this became the chief cornerstone as we mentioned previously just a couple times back this was part of the halal that the Jews would sing in alternating verse among them as they were ascending towards Jerusalem to go to the temple to a festival and so this was a part of it Psalm 118 verse 22 The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. That's what Jesus just quotes to them.

So Psalm 118.22 connects to all these Old and New Testament passages Isaiah 28.16 and Zechariah 10.4 and then these New Testament passages Matthew 21.42 Mark 12.10 and Luke 20.17 that we just read here.

Also in Ephesians 2.20 and 22, and 1 Peter 2.6 and 7. So this is a very significant verse.

And a part of what Jesus is announcing here is the stones the builders rejected will become the chief cornerstone, as we'll see shortly, for the church. The chief cornerstone for the church. He is announcing, you guys are going to lose it, but I'm going to build my church. and I will be the start of it. Me, the one you've rejected. So it's all about the stone here. The leaders of the Jews, with very few exceptions, outright rejected Christ and they plotted his death. The stone that the builders, that's them, rejected became the chief cornerstone, the foundation stone for the church. In their rejection of Christ as their Messiah and Savior, they provide the cornerstone for the foundation of the church, the body of Christ.

Here's Luke 20.18, everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls it will scatter him like dust. So Christ is the stone that the builders rejected that has become a foundation stone for the church. He will also be the stone of judgment at his second coming. Christ will crush those who oppose him as Israel's Messiah at his second coming. He will crush all those who oppose his reign in the kingdom.

And we finish with this place where the Apostle Paul includes that stone in the building of the church. So we read from this Hebrew poetry pattern that's set up here, So you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and you are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, and in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

So let's ask this question. Is the building of this building done? No, not as long as we are still here. This building continues in the church among the body of Christ. And by the way, who does the building? Is that our job? It's His job. He is the one who is doing this building here. We, not only individually, but we together are a temple. That also fits with what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We together are a temple, a dwelling place of the Lord, and the building is continuing even today until the day he takes us all home. Until that day.

I hope it's today. Let's pray. Thank you Lord for what you revealed and in what Jesus interacted with with these men and also what's shown here that their rejection of Christ is what he himself will use to establish and has used to establish the church and we thank you that as we read this passage we find that we are still being built and it's Christ that is doing it And we thank you, Lord, for that great and wonderful work that you're doing. And we look forward to the day when you will take us all home to be with you. We hope it's today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And so he's prepared to receive a call from us any moment here.

He lives in a village, he and Juliet, and their three children, live in a village just south of M'Bale. By the way, you say M'Bale, not M'Bale, okay? All right? That's something else, and I won't even tell you what it is. Anyway, so M'Bale did the wedding ceremony, a three-hour-long wedding ceremony, okay? for them over there in Mbale. So anyway, they have been married there since June of 2011, when I was over there.

He'll also be telling us when we talk about Shisenyo Village. That is a place where I was at back in 2009. We had a village Bible conference, right? banana leaf walls and mud floor, right? And now they've actually got a new building and they're having a crusade and that sort of thing.

So at any rate, we'll talk about that briefly here. So let's try to give them a call, see if we can connect up. Hopefully that works out and we can talk with them here. I'm going to try one more time to get a hold of Hassan here and see if we can get the call to go through Hello Hassan Hello, so so Hassan We're we're finally getting through to you here talking at Holly Hills Bible Church.

Let me There is that better in your Thank you. There we go. Okay. All right. So Hassan, can you hear me? I Oh, yes, I'm getting you. Okay. All right. So we're here gathered together. We tried to call you earlier and didn't go through but now we have thankfully. And I'm glad for that. And we just are so glad to be able to have a chance to talk together with you. Now, do you have do you have Juliet with you? Yes, Juliet is here with me. Okay, very good, all right. Well, you had sent me an email, and in the email you mentioned a few different things. First of all, you mentioned your children, Adrian, Anita, and Alvin, right? Alvin, Adrian, and Anita. Okay, alright, great. And then the other thing is, you talked about, let's see, going to Shisenyo Village. Yes, we are having a church plant in Shisenyo Village.

Okay, good. That's a place where I had gone and spoken to back in 2009, so now they've got a church plant there. Now, it's my understanding from my last from my last visit that you have been teaching some people there. Oh, yes. OK, so that's good news. So you've been building up the body of Christ in Chisinau village all during this time. And now they have a church building there, right? Yes, church building that we have now. All right.

And then also, you're living at Naujo now, right? The village of Naujo? Naujo Presbyterian Church. Okay. And you're a deacon at the church at Naujo, correct? Yes, we have classes here at Naujo Church. We have meetings with the elders and Bible studies as well. Alright. And your brother is also one of the deacons there, correct? Oh, yes. Yes. Alright, and then, yeah, we talked about if, when I come over there again that I would teach at the church at Naujo, right? You have Naujo, CBIT, and also the couple, the couple meeting. Hello? Hello? Yeah. Hello. Yes. And then one other thing.

One other thing I wanted to be sure we talk about, while we have you on the line here, you were married in, was that 2011? In June of 2011, you were married there in Mbale? You and Julia? Okay, and that's one that I came over and did the wedding ceremony for? Oh yes, thank you very much. You came back in 2011.

Alright, and then now more recently you and Juliet are doing a lot of counseling before the marriage? We have pre-marital counseling and after marriage counseling with the couple that we have had the right to them to go through the The resources that you took us through, you have to make sure we skip weddings. Okay, and then one of the things I understand is that then one of the ways that they do that is to have you be the best man and the maid of honor for Juliet at a lot of these weddings. Oh yes, oh yes, the ladies have really looked upon her to be the model, because just because of what you did for us, they have looked upon her.

Okay, well it's been great. Do you have any other words you'd like to share with the church body here at Holly Hills? Oh yes, sure. Our gratitude and thanks to God for the opportunity that Holyhills has given unto us. As a church body, we say thank you very much. We are certainly delighted to... Thank you.

Hello? We're certainly delighted to be able to support you. Thank you very much Holyhills. Can't hear me I guess. Yeah. We're delighted to be able to support you in this and to hear about things that are going on in your ministry, in Naujo, in Shisenyo, and in other places in that area. Thank you very much. Okay. All right.

Well, we will say goodbye, but we'll look forward to calling you again sometime and getting updated. Thank you very much, President. Thank you. May God bless the opposition. Okay. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Amen. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. That was in lieu of Hassan's other proposal that he fly here, say thank you, and then go home. Right? So anyway, now the music team can come up.