SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/31/2012 9:58:15 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: Question of
Authority Part Two
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark 12:1-12
Message of the verses: Earlier in
the month we looked at the first part of “Question of Authority” from the end
of the 11th chapter of Mark, and now I want to finish this section
from the first twelve verses of Mark 12.
The story actually continues on and I suppose this is one of the reasons
that we know that the scholars who put into the Bible the different chapters
were not always correct in where they put them, but that is what we have and so
we will go on with the story in this SD.
We need to
remember that Jesus is in the last week of His life here on planet earth as He
will be crucified by the Romans, and die for our sins exactly when the passover
lamb was to be slain, for John the Baptist said of Jesus when he saw Him,
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It was not the desire of the religious rulers
of Israel, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes to kill Jesus on the day of
the Passover because they feared the people.
This was God’s plan all along to have His Son to die at this exact
moment in time and so nothing these people could do to stop it. Isaiah wrote that it pleased God to slay Him
“Isa 53:10 But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him
to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His
offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will
prosper in His hand.” This being said
the Romans, the Jews, and Judas were responsible in having Jesus killed and
they will have to answer for it.
Now we will pick up the story we began a few weeks ago by
looking at the first twelve verses of Mark twelve.
“1 ¶ And He began to
speak to them in parables: "A man PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND
IT, AND DUG A VAT UNDER THE WINE PRESS AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to
vine-growers and went on a journey. 2
"At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order
to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 "They took him, and beat him and sent
him away empty-handed. 4 "Again he
sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him
shamefully. 5 "And he sent another,
and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing
others. 6 "He had one more to send,
a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ’They will respect my
son.’ 7 "But those vine-growers
said to one another, ’This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance will be ours!’ 8 "They
took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 "What will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to
others. 10 "Have you not even read
this Scripture: ’THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF
CORNER stone; 11 THIS CAME ABOUT FROM
THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?" 12 And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet
they feared the people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against
them. And so they left Him and went away.”
Before we begin to look at the parable in this section I
want to review what Dr. Wiersbe wrote about parables and why Jesus taught in
parables. He writes, “A parable begins
innocently as a picture that arrests
our attention and arouses our interest.
But as we study the picture, it becomes a mirror in which we suddenly see ourselves. If we continue to look by faith, the mirror
becomes a window through which we see
God and His truth. How we respond to
that truth will determine what further truth God will teach us.” Before I go on with the rest of this quote I
want to state that the window of opportunity for these false teachers of Israel
was about to shut for at the end of this parable we will see only a couple of
more times that Jesus will teach anything to them and that will be because they
send people to trick Him. The sad thing
is that there will come a time in a person’s life when the Spirit of God will
stop working in the life of an unbeliever and they will then be lost.
“Why did Jesus teach in parables? His disciples asked Him that very question
(Mark 4:10-12; and see Matt. 13:10-17).
A careful study of His reply reveals that Jesus used parables both to
hide the truth and to reveal it. The
crowd did not judge the parables; the parables judged the crowd. The careless listener, who thought he knew
everything, would hear only a story that he did not really understand; and the
results in his life would be judgment (see Matt. 11:25-30). The sincere listener, with a desire to know
God’s truth would ponder the parable, confess his ignorance, submit to the Lord,
and then begin to understand the spiritual lesson Jesus wanted to teach.”
The parable that we have before us would reveal where the
sins of these leaders was heading. These
leaders had already permitted John the Baptist to be killed and shortly they
would be a part in the killing of God’s Son as this parable will show us. The parable begins with a quote from the
fifth chapter of the book of Isaiah, “1 ¶
Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His
vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. 2 He dug it all around, removed its stones, And
planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And
also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes,
But it produced only worthless ones. 3
"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge
between Me and My vineyard. 4 "What
more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I
expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones? 5 "So now let Me tell you what I am going
to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will
break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. 6 "I will lay it waste; It will not be
pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the
clouds to rain no rain on it." 7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the
house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for
justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of
distress.”
We see from these first seven verses in Isaiah chapter five
that the Lord calls Israel His vineyard.
The people of Israel would plant things like wheat on the flat land and
then on the hills would plant the vineyards.
There is a lot of rocks in Israel and so before planting the vines they
would did up all the rocks and pile them up around the edges of the
vineyard. This would protect the vines
from the animals and thieves as they would also in some large vineyards would
actually have gates where people could stand and protect their vineyards. Now it takes a while for the vines to produce
fruit and as we look at the parable and also the section from Isaiah we can see
that God expected for Israel to begin to produce fruit, but all they were
producing was sour grapes or as the NASB puts it “worthless grapes.” All of Israel knew that the Messiah was to
come, and if they would have understood the prophecy from Daniel 9:24-27 they
could have all figured out that this was the time period that He should arrive
and some did, for even foreigners knew of the time of the birth of Jesus. Many believe that these “kings” came from
Babylon or around there because of Daniel’s teaching. There were two people in the temple who knew
who Jesus was when He was just born, so people could know it was His time. He had taught three years and would expect to
have fruit from His teaching, but generally there was not much from the people
of Israel. Imagine having the very Son
of God walking around teaching and preaching for three years and few people
knew that He was God’s Son.
Dr. Wiersbe writes that “In order to retain his legal
rights to the property, the owner had to receive produce from the tenants, even
if it was only some of the vegetables that grew between the rows of the trees
or vines. This explains why the tenants
refused to give him anything: they wanted to claim the vineyard for
themselves. It also explains why the
owner continued to sent agents to them; it was purely a question of authority
and ownership.
“If Mark 12:2-5 covers the three years when the fruit was
not used, then it was in the fourth year that the beloved Son was sent. This is
the year when the fruit was devoted to the Lord (Lev. 19:24), and it makes
the sending of the Son even more meaningful.
If the tenants cold do away with the heir, they would have a clear claim
to the property; so they cast him out and killed Him. (See Hebrews 13:12-13), ‘12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify
the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing
His reproach.’”
We better begin to name who the participants of this
parable are. We have already stated
that the vineyard was Israel and the owner of the vineyard is God. The ones that were sent to collect payment
from the tenants were the prophets. The
tenants were the spiritual leaders of Israel. The son was the Son of God.
The spiritual leaders had miss used the teachings of the
Scriptures and thus set up a false religious system for Israel, and Jesus spoke
of this to them on many occasions.
When we see the passage from Isaiah five we know that it
was written for the Jews who lived in Israel before the captivity of them by
Babylon, but now this parable speaks of the time when Jesus was there and the
coming Roman invasion of Israel that would cause the Jews to be dispersed all
around the world as spoken of in the 28 chapter of Deuteronomy. “De 28:68
‘The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which
I spoke to you, ’You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves
for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no
buyer.’” This is exactly what happened
to them after the Romans destroyed the temple and killed many people in 70 A.
D.
There is one more quotation from the OT in this parable
that we need to look at and that is from Psalm 118: 22-23 which says, “22 The stone which the builders rejected Has
become the chief corner stone. 23 This
is the LORD’S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” Earlier when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the
cold of a donkey His disciples quoted another section from Psalm 118, “Blessed
is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.”
Dr. Wiersbe states that “The Stone’ was a well known symbol
for the Messiah (Ex. 17:6; Dan. 2:34; Zech. 4:7; Rom. 9:32-33; 1Cor. 10:4; and
1Peter 2:6-8). The Servant-Judge
announced a double verdict: they had not only rejected the Son, but they had
also refused the Stone! There could be
only one consequence—judgment (Matt. 22:1-14).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Understanding and putting into practice the
things we learn from the Scriptures comes from the Holy Spirit of God who lives
within the believer. As I come upon
problems in my life I desire to have the Spirit of God teach me solutions from
His Word so that when I am tempted by these problems I can remember the Word of
God and that will help me overcome these problems and temptations.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: In writing this above I know that it takes
contentment from the Lord as I learn from His Word and it also takes being
transformed by the renewing of God’s Word.
Memory verses for the week:
Psalm 130:1-2
1 Out of
the debts I cried to You, O LORD. 2 Lord,
hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
10/31/2012 11:35:37 AM
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