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Chapter 35 - Wicked Vine Growers
Matt. 21:45-46
45 And [kai] when the chief priests [archiereus] and [kai] Pharisees [Pharisaios] had heard [akouo] his [autos] parables [parabole] , they perceived [ginosko] that [hoti] he spake [lego] of [peri] them [autos] .
46 But [kai] when they sought [zeteo] to lay hands [krateo] on him [autos] , they feared [phobeo] the multitude [ochlos] , because [epeide] they took [echo] him [autos] for [hos] a prophet [prophetes] . KJV-Interlinear
45 And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. 46 And when they sought to seize Him, they feared the multitudes, because they held Him to be a prophet. NASB
These priests and Pharisees knew that they were the representations of the son who lied (parable of the two sons), that they were the wicked vine growers, that they were the ones who rejected the corner stone.
Note that they rejected God first, and God had given them, just as He gives every person on earth throughout history, many chances to see the error of their ways, but they continued to reject the truth, knowing that they were rejecting it. Therefore, because they first rejected God, then God eventually and after giving many opportunities of personal belief, will reject them.
Their rejection of God serves no purpose and accomplishes no objective. But Gods rejection of them will have eternal repercussions, and those repercussions will be horrifying for all unbelievers.
Now these parables are specifically directed at unbelievers, but the principles also apply to negative believers. Those who believe in Christ receive the promise to live in heaven. That is for certain.
But they (believers) also receive the opportunity, repeat 'opportunity,' to grow up spiritually and to receive many more blessings as a result of their spiritual growth. Why is it only an opportunity? Because you have to decide to study your Bible daily, you have to decide to apply what you learn to your daily life, and if you ignore all of this, then you obviously do not grow up spiritually. Therefore the growth part is potential only. It is not automatic.
In life, everything is clear to all, even unbelievers. Jesus was talking about these priests and they knew it. Did they respond properly and fall down on their faces and beg in tears, for forgiveness from Jesus Christ? No. They became bitter, resentful, and continued in their plotting against Him. And He is the God of this universe, standing right before them.
Stubbornness is a terrible threat to a persons life. To allow it to consume your life means that you destroy your own life. You see the truth, but you are defiant toward it. You resent others who see it. You will even go our of your way to destroy them if possible, just to satisfy your resentment. If you are stubborn and therefore resentful of others, then you refuse to see your own flaws.
Oh, by the way. See the movie 'Bruce Almighty.' It has a very good illustration of this principle. Resentful people are their own worst enemy. They are selfish, self centered, with big ego's, look only to their own success regardless of how they come by it, and absolutely hate anyone else who might succeed when they fail. If they have the opportunity, they will destroy anyone who gets in the way of their success. No remorse.
These priests were only interested in their positions, in their power, in their highly regarded (in their own minds) place in society. Jesus threatened all of this (or so they thought). They cared nothing for the many peoples helped by Jesus. They cared nothing for their well being or that the people were in anyway better off as a result of Jesus' many miracles.
So too, this attitude applies to anyone who rejects God in the first place, or rejects their Bible study in the second. Negative is negative is negative. Without Bible doctrine running the soul, then the soul is being run by the sin nature and circulating ones own worldly attitude. The result? Stubbornness, which breeds problems, which leads to frustration, then to anger, and hate and self pity, and even to revenge. The spiral continues until you either hit bottom and finally quit on the world and God quits on you, or until you finally realize that you need God and change yourself. Believe me, it is far easier to get with a daily Bible study now while things are more or less easy in your life, than it will be when things go south in your life.
Don't let excuses get in your way.
These priests, as do all unbelievers, chose the former approach. They rejected God and continued to reject Him. This resulted in total misery in their lives. By the way, there was another very good documentary on the history channel recently. Can't quite remember the complete title, but it was 'David - The End of a Kingdom' or something like that. Anyway it covered the period in history of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in the late 60's and then in 70 A.D. It was a picture of utter misery and death for the people of Jerusalem. The story was pretty dramatic, but the point I want to make here is, they (the Jews) rejected Christ for another 40 years after the Cross, then God used the Romans to destroy them and their temple of stone. The city was leveled and tens of thousands died by starvation, by brutalities of many sorts, and the list of atrocities by the Romans and from the many competing groups inside the city is a long list. Not a good place to be in those days.
Rejection of God results in a very brutal and miserable life and an even worse eternal existence. Likewise, we should see and understand that rejection of Gods Word in our life here on earth as believers, will result in a miserable life now and when we get to eternity we will see vast eternal blessings that we could have had, simply fade from our grasp. Is stubbornness or indifference worth all of that?
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