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Episode 354:On today's episode, our discussion centered around a powerful passage found in the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Each account tells the parable of the wicked tenant farmers who, instead of respecting the landowner's servants and son, beat, killed, and stoned them. This parable is a direct critique of the religious leaders of the time, who Jesus accuses of being like those violent tenants.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, Jeff, how are you. That's spent all day, all this week, most of the week. I've gone do do do have you? Yeah, I'm just feeling are you talking about on the podcast? Yeah? Yeah, the whole podcast? Wow? Almost every time well is an announcement? Yeah, exactly. So what's your big announcement. I'm just glad to be here with Chris By today and serving you, and it's my privilege to be sitting across the table from you. Oh, thank you, thank you, and uh I received that. Yes, h huh. So today we're doing a segment called where are our Listeners From? Because every once in a while it's fun to see where our listeners are from. There you go. So this segment is us going ahead and listing some facts about this particular place, and then our listeners have to see whether or not they figure it out before we say the city yes, and this could be any we're in the world, yes, or country yes. Okay, here's the first one. Yep. This city is named after hidden underground wells. I did not know that I did not know that either underground. Wells, wow, I did not know that. Okay, Number two, people in the city consume more shellfish in one day then the entire United States does in a year. Is that true? That is one of the craziest facts I've ever heard? Is it true? Wait a minute, I feel like snoping that one. Snop it snop. Yeah, yeah, do it, because I gotta tell you that if that's true, that's an unbelievable stat Yeah. Okay, well, let's ask serious soon as we're done with this. Okay, sure, okay. Uh. Number three, with its millions of lights, this city is considered the brightest spot on earth. Okay, well, people should get it by there. Yeah, really close. And then number four it is going to be it's going to host the Super Bowl this weekend. Oh I know where that's at. I know where's at too. Here it is. It is Las Vegas, Nevada. So thank you guys for listening. Thanks for listening from Las Vegas. Hey, Siri, does Las Vegas consume more shellfish than all the rest of the United States. There's no way that she has the answer to that from that, Yeah, were here. Las Vegas's daily diet of sixty thousand pounds of shrimp is greater than the entire United States. That is amazing. That's per day. That's than the rest of the nation combined. Wow, that's amazing. So think about it. Who knew that? If you're in the shrimp business, right, set it up Las Vegas, that's my boat. Yeah, right, because that would be that would be you. You have your eyes set on lasab Vegas, you son of a gun. Okay, wow, sixty thousand pounds a day? Yeah, So how much shell fish? What? What percentage of that is? Like? What would what would the percentage be? So think about think about the accumulation of all of the year. So three hundred and sixty five days, let me do it. I might cant a lot. It will be a lot. Just start catching your phone. It'd be a lot. Like you're using as a machine. Great. I don't know how I'm supposed to answer that question. But is a lot tremendous? Yeah? Wow, I got it. Got It's a lot. It's so great. Oh goodness, Okay, Well that was really something, Yes, it is. It was something. Yes. So today we are reading a passage in Matthew Mark and is it Luke, Yes, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all telling the same story of this parable that Jesus tells of the evil farmers. Yes, and man, there's nothing I like more than evil farmers stories. So this is going to be super big exciting. That's because you sort of were growing up on the I grew up on a homestead. Yeah, so we had orchards and vineyards and we raised all of our own food and yeah, yeah, yeah, well we grew it. Yeah, and then we heated the house with wood and we sold wood and got sides of meat and beef, pork and like that. Raised it would mean like you slaughtered animals, right, is that? Did you guys do that? No, we did. We didn't slaughter, well, chickens, we did. Yeah, oh yeah, well then that's raised. Yep. One time my dad bought a hundred chickens, one hundred chicks for lazing laying eggs, and then then when they started growing up, we found out we had ninety nine roosters. So yeah, it was a bad because we're all excited. Man, we're gonna start a chicken or an egg operation, right, that's gonna be making money selling eggs and turns out roosters don't lay eggs. We got ninety nine. Well they make a lot of noise, they sure do, So we butchered all those. Yes, I'm sure, here we go, so Matthew Chapter twenty one, verse thirty three. Starting off the parable of these evil farmers, it says, now listen to another story. A certain landowner planeted a vineyard, built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. At the time of the grape harvest, he sent his servants to collected his share of the crop, but the farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. So the landowners sent a larger group of his servants to collect for him, but the results were the same. Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking surely they will respect my son. But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves. So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him. When the owner of the vineyard returns. Jesus asked, what do you think he will do to those farmers. The religious leaders replied, he will put the wicked men to a horrible death and least the vineyard to those who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest. Then Jesus asked them, didn't you ever read this in the scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful to see. I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. Anyone who stumbles over that stone will be broke into pieces, and will crush anyone who falls on it. When the leading priests and pharisees heard this parable, they realized he was telling the story against them. They were the wicked farmers. They wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds who considered Jesus to be a prophet. Oh, Jesus went right at it. So there's two stories, because yesterday is parable back to back. He's telling it like it is, Yeah, he is. He's calling them out. At this point, yees in Mark chapter twelve tells the same source as when Jesus began teaching them with stories. Oh, then Jesus began teaching them with stories. A man planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. At the time of the grape harvest, he sent one of his servants to collect his share of the crop, but the farmers grabbed the servant, beat him up, and send him back empty handed. The owner then sent another servant, but they insulted him and beat him over the head. The next servant he sent was killed. Others he sent were either beaten or killed, until there was only one left, his son, whom he loved dearly. The owner finally sent him, thinking, surely they will expect my son. But the tenant farmers said to one another, here comes the heir to this estate. Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves. So they grabbed him and murdered him and threw his body out of the vineyard. But do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will what do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do. Jesus asked, I tell you he will come and kill those farmers and least the vineyard to others. Didn't you ever read this in the scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing, and it's wonderful to see. The religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus because they realized he was telling the story against them. They were the wicked farmers, but they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him went away. So Jesus told in that one, it's just told a little bit differently, isn't it, Yeah, a little bit. Then in Luke, chapter twenty, verse nine, it says, now Jesus turned to the people again and told them this story. A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and moved to another country to live for several years. At the time of the great harvest, he sent one of his servants to collect his share of the crop, but the farmers attacked the servant, beat him up, and sent him back empty handed. So the owner sent another servant, but they also insulted him, beat him up, and sent him away empty handed. A third man was sent, and they wounded him and chased him away. What will I do, the owner asked himself. I know, I'll send my cherished son. Surely they will respect him. But when the tenant farmers saw his son, they said to each other, here comes the heir to this estate. Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves. So they dragged him out of the vineyard and murdered him. What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do to them, Jesus asked, I'll tell you he'll come and kill those farmers and least the vineyard to others. How terrible that such a thing should ever happen, his listeners protested. Jesus looked at them and said, then, what does this scripture mean? The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. Everyone who stumbles over the stone. Over that stone will be broken to pieces. It'll crush anyone that falls on the teachers of religious law and the leading priests won their rest Jesus immediately because they realized he was telling the story against them. They were the wicked farmers, but they were afraid of the people's reaction. Yeah. So so three stories. Uh, each of them have slightly, you know, small different details, and like, for instance, like the third servant in the Book of Mark says he was he was killed, and then the Book of Luke says that the third servant was wounded. Yeah, right, so and so yeah, there's there's a there's a little bit of inconsistency on the wounds there. Yeah, but it could be that the writers of the story just remembered it that way. Yeah, or it's well, you typically if you if you're fatally beat, you die from your wounds. Oh, so it could be that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. There's a room fac He didn't have to have died when they threw him out of the vineyard, right, he could have died after you thrown out of the vineyard from his wounds. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So those aren't mutually exclusive, it still works. Yeah, But the bigger picture is that they they roughed up the servants of the right of the owner, roughed up and killed, right, and then they killed the son for sure. So and so uh and then I love how up until the point where Jesus quoted, uh the the I wonder what it was the Book of Psalms until Jesus quoted the Book of Psalms. Uh, they were right there with him. And and as a matter of fact, the other ones, uh what the book of Luke says, how terrible a thing that that should have ever happened? His listener's protested, Yeah, right, and that's a terrible story, you know what. It reminds me of when Nathan approached King David, remember, and he says, let me tell you a story about He goes, this thing happened where the man went over and grabbed the sheep. It was like a little family member. And then David stands up and says, how wicked of a thing that person shall die who has done such a thing. And he's like, that be you, you right? But he was right there with him, and the story right before the moment when Nathan pointed his finger right at where did Dathan and said, you know you are the man, right, and he was with him. That's that's where these guys were. They were right there with Jesus. So many of the stories that excuse me that Jesus tells people come away and go what do you mean by that? Right? And this one they go, hey, wait a minute, wait at I think he's talking about us, right, and they want to rescue me, only to much more of a serious degree. Right, So it wasn't it wasn't as as veiled this time. And that's what you're seeing in these last couple of days. You know, he's come to Jerusalem, he's on his way to the cross, and he's ratcheting up both his declarations of who he is. Remember a few days ago we read where he says, if you see me, you've seen God. Right right, he's declaring that he's God. He's declaring that he is the sacrifice. Here, he's declaring that he is the cornerstone that the builders rejected, which was the Jews recognize that the prophetic statement about the Messiah, right, yes, and so he's declaring that. And then he at the same time now is not being veiled with his comments about the the Pharisees and that stuff. He's going, you know, God's going to judge you. You are rejecting the son of the King. Now, now here we are two thousand years later, and most of the nation that Jesus came to, yeah, doesn't believe that he's the Messiah. Yeah, there are more Christian tourists in Israel each day than there are actual Christians in Israel. Now. Yeah. Yeah. So when we went to Israel, we actually went in the middle of Palestine. You know, there's there's there's like a those people WO don't know, so Israel. The Jews have the outside, right, and then there's a there's a wall that's kind of like a like a doughnut hole us right in the middle, only it's it's bigger than that. And there's a wall in the center of Israel sort of that have the Palestinians that are inside of it, right so along the Jordan River, and then it cuts out into the country and then circles back to and around right up to the edges of Jerusalem that would be the West Bank yep. Then there's all the rest from the north to the south is Israel. And then you have the little strip of God which is which is which is separated, and those the two Palestinian areas that they live in. And so I was trying to describe it. Didn't know whether there's a wall or a fence that separates the two groups. Yeah, and I didn't describe that very well. But anyway, But most Christian tourists if they go inside the wall of the West Bank or Palestine, they usually only go there for like Bethlehem right right, so inside the wall is Bethlham, which is a major Christian site. And uh, but there's a lot of cities in the middle of Israel that don't have that much, you know, significance, and and if it does, people usually don't travel. Right. But even in Bethlehem, there's far more Christian tourists than there are Christians and Bethlee oh way more way more so. Anyway, my point is this is that I remember being there in two thousand and nine and we went to the very center of Palestine, so the very very center of the West Bank, and it was a really small city called zabab De. And they said and they said, why are we traveling so far into you know, Palestinian territory, And they said, we're going to a city that has the most Christians. And do you know what the percentage of the most Christians was one percent? Well, and they said, they said, yes, above Dae has one percent Christian and so that's where we're going there. And I was like, one percent is the most They said yes, So we drove all it Zabab day and what we did was we held a vacation Bible school type event to about one hundred Muslim care and we told them that we're going to be telling them about Jesus. Like we told them up front, Hey, if you drop your kids off, we're telling about Jesus. And they all said that's fine, and they were totally open to it. So we're like cool. So that's what we did. And do you remember what I was in charge of outdoor games? Oh one hundred and twenty degrees. Everybody else was indoors teaching lessons. And by the way, I kind of teach, right, a little bit of teaching. But somehow I got stuck with outdoor games, right. And by the way, I had all these things like soccer involved, right until I realized the only outdoor game that anybody wanted to play was something with water. So I was like, get this sponge and let's pass it over our heads and it just drips. Everybody in the raw like giggling. They just wanted water. Anything involved water, Okay, everybody scored each other anyway. The point is is that I went off on a tangent to say that the people had rejected him. Yes, it's a nation that by in law ards fulfills the prophecy of exactly if Psalm one eighteen. Yeah, the stones that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. And it says that he's going to take he's going to kill the farmers, and he's going to rent the vineyard to somewhere else that's going to be a lot more fruitful, that's going to do a lot of the work and Christianity and the message of Jesus has been spurred on by other places other than where Jesus came to. Yeah. And so when Jesus is referring to himself as the rock here, right, the stone that had to have really gotten Peter's attention probably yeah, oh hey, wait a minute, right, And later on Peter is the one who says that we are a holy nation of priests, right, yeah. So, and it's in this context that he says I'm the rock, right, and I tell you In verse forty three of Matthew twenty one, it says, I tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. Right, Well, what is that nation? He's saying, I'm going to give it to the whole world, right, all the gentiles, everybody who is willing to come to faith in me. They will, even though they're from every tribe and every people group in the world, every language group. They will be a nation of holy priests for me on the whole planet, and they will accomplish what you've refused to do for me. You know, God's plan was always for Israel to be a witness and a testimony to the world, and instead they isolated themselves, and then they built their own systems that began to reject him. So when he talks about you know, the king sends or the owner, the certain landowner sends his servants, and those are the prophets. That's what Jesus already told themselves. You guys are the ones who killed the prophets. He says that several times here, those are the ones. Those servants that come in, they beat one, they killed another, right, And then he says, and then you're going to kill the son, right, right, which is him? That's him, like literally now in two days, right, they're going to kill him. So this is really really close. And then because of that, the King's going to I'm back and wipe you out. That's what he's going to do. This owner is going to wipe you out, and then he's going to set up a new kingdom with new servants that are going to be a new nation. And that nation isn't about just the land. It's about the people. And that's what Peter says later on this. That's why I was highlighting that that we're a nation of holy priests Christians, right, right, And it's not that we are a nation with priests, but rather every one of us is a priest. Right, we all can go to God, Bookie, Hebrew says, we can go boldly before the throne of grace. Every one of us has access to the King, and every one of us has the mission. Then he says, to bear the right kind of fruit. Right, we're produced the proper fruit, and the proper fruit is the fruit of the righteous, is a tree of life. And he that wins souls as wise. Yeah, that's right, right, either win of souls is wise. Yeah. So I remember preaching one time and I said, I said, that's that verse you know in the King James is he that winneth, Yeah, I said, he that winneth souls is wise, and so then I stumbled and I said, so if you want to be wise, go in a soul. Yeah yeah, which that's not what that means, but it was good preaching. So yeah, I think that overall, Jesus is approaching Jerusalem. He knows his time is near. He's not saying anything that isn't true. He's getting bolder and bolder with his claims. He already knows as we read a few weeks ago or a few days ago, that you know, he had when he overturned the money tables, remember that. Yeah, he overturned the money changers and the tables, and the people were selling doves and sacrifices for profit unjustly. He overturned those and then he had people really truly rally behind him. They conspired against him, and Jesus knows it's coming, and so he's like, hey, it's set in motion now, right, Yeah, there's no holding back. So I'm just going to come out with it. And he's coming out with bolder and bolder, you know, truths that they don't like. He tells this story. I believe because of he knew that they were going to react, because I think he's exposing their plot to kill him. Right, There's going to be some people who go, yeah, Jesus needs to die. That's going to happen tomorrow or the next day whatever. But there's not in the podcast, but in the in the course of days of days, we're in the last six days of Jesus, right, because because he is, he is clearly at passover, that's right. So there's going to be others who go, hey, wait a minute, Jesus said that they were going to kill the son, and he claimed to be the son, right, right, So I think what he's doing is he's just kind of driving away. He's being clear. And the fact that he knew that the priests would pitch a fit about this, and the and the Pharisees and religious teachers we go, hey, wait a minute, you're talking about us. Would then he's exposing the fact they're going to kill me. And he's reinforcing prophecies. Yep, absolutely, you know, just just letting everybody know that every prophecy written about the coming of the Messiah is coming true and is true. And so again it's for us two thousand years later, we're able to look back and say, and yet another prophecy fulfilled, how Jesus is you know, true to his word and he is who he says he is. It's great. Well, I think that's a good place to end ye and I think that we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,