Sermon Tone Analysis

Do you remember?

Whose authority?

Jesus has has His authority questioned and he responds with backing the chief priests into a corner.

First he questioned them about John’s baptism

They could not answer it, so Jesus pressed on with three parables.

Parable of two sons (vv.28-32) in which he points out about actions need to speak louder than words.

Israel was about words, law, but not about love in action.

He finishes that one with the kingdom will be opened to others since their actions don’t match their words

And also because of their unbelief.

And that now brings us to our passage today.

Turn in Story Book to pgs.

120-121 and Mt21:33-45 in your Bible

while they are turning tell of it was not out of the ordinary for a landowner to have someone care for a vineyard, leave and come back for harvest.

There is symbolic language in this passage so see if you can pick out the characters as we go through it.

What do you see, what do you notice, what sticks out to you?

The Parable

Can you pick out the characters, participants?

Don’t miss the obvious one.

Jesus (v.33)

Landowner (v.33) - God

Vine-growers (v.33) - Jews

Slaves, more slaves (vv.34, 36) - Prophets

Son - (v.37) Jesus

What can you tell about the vineyard from (v.33)? - it was new, the landowner invested in the land, built the , dug wine press, built a tower:

A tougher question, what is the vineyard?

- Israel is considered a vineyard and you can see, read more on that in Isa5:1-7

Who is the landowner if the vineyard is Israel?

The work that the landowner did is symbolic of what God did for Israel, his care, his provision.

The going away on a journey can symbolically represent the time after God gave Israel the instructions to care for the vineyard and left them to do their business and keep in line with His instructions, his will.

As for the harvest time, what do you think that represents? - This is the time of accountability, what did the vine-growers do with the vineyard?

- What is the Lord going to find when He returns?

Look at this one:

Time of accountability is also time of judgment isn’t it?

Is the Lord going to find faith, obedient faith, working faith?

Did the landowner expect to find fruit from the vineyard (v.34)?

Does God expect to find fruit from us?

What kind of fruit should we bear?

(yes, good fruit)

In (vv.35-36)

What did the tenants do?

In (vv.35-36)

What did the landowner do?

Who can you deduce the slaves to be?

So now this brings us to the next part of the parable (vv.37-39)

Who did the landowner send next?

What did he expect?

What did the vinegrowers (tenant) reason to do and why do you think so?

What did the do, where did they do it?

Now God (landowner) sent His Son with an expectation that they will receive and respect the Son as they would Him.

Why did God expect them to receive and respect the Son? - They were claiming to be followers of God, and if they accepted God they would accept God’s Son, remember this is all spoken as a parable, and there is one point in a parable and Jesus is getting to it, but first has to paint them into a corner, again.

Mt22:

Mt21:41

What did they respond to the parable

So how did Jesus paint them into a corner?

Does this sound familiar to any other parable you may have read in the bible before?

Maybe you remember the story that Nathan painted in 2Sam12:1-15 to David and then told David he was that man.

Well Jesus just did the same thing.

The Explanation

Jesus is now going to tell them what the parable means after he had painted them into a corner with their response in (v.41)

What is Jesus asking them?

Why is that relevant?

- Don’t you know the scripture, aren’t you supposed to be the leaders, the wise ones.

This quote comes from Psm118 and whereas there it was a picture of the stone being Israel, Jesus is now showing them that He is the stone the builders are rejecting.

And he is the cornerstone (capstone) on which everything will be built.

How we can know that is now look at (v.423

Who is the kingdom going to be taken away from? - taken from the Jews, the chief priests, the elders.

Why?

Because they are rejecting the stone

Who is it going to be given to? - those bearing fruit of repentance

fruit of faith

Mt21:

God was bringing to fruition the promise made to Abraham about all nations being blessed by taking away the privilege that the Jews had and giving it to all.

bringing us to (v.44)

Dire warning with serious consequences when you take the stone lightly or you reject the stone.

Whether crushed by it

or stumble and fall on it.

Is

The results are the same is destruction, brokenness, scattered like dust.

Conviction did not lead to conversion but to wanting to seize Him more

Be careful where you stand lest you fall.

The Jews were confident where they stood and it was to their downfall.

We too need to be careful where we stand.

We need to stand in faith, we need to stand in obedience, we need to stand in the truth and we need to stand together.