True To His Ways: Reflections - Apporaching Destruction

A study of end times apostasy
considering Jesus’ parable of the vinedressers
as told at Mark 12:1-11

All Scripture quotations are from Tyndale's New Testament, 1534(indicated by WT) or the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated. Italics are added for emphasis.

This reflection examines only one of several biblical analogies of God’s relationship with Earth’s peoples as revealed in His Word. It is necessarily only one part, one aspect, of a rich and complex palette. However it is no less rich in itself for being considered by itself. And, to explore one aspect deeply opens the mind and spirit to understand others more deeply also.

This reflection is the basis of a book due to be published when time permits. Comments or suggestions? Write to us at office@truetohisways.com

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

            The parable from Mark 12:1-1.
            The vineyard lease; a lease is not forever.
            The Word of God to the Israelites.
            Moses’ vineyard only one among others.
            The lesson of the vinedressers who had the Word but hated it more and more.
            Vinedressers: tenants in the house who teach us by example
                what is in the hearts of all men.
            Man by nature rejects the Word of God, and so those in the vineyard
                rejected the Word given through Moses.
            Rejection of the Word is apostasy, and apostasy is rebellion against God.
            When the vineyard cup was full of the vinegar of apostasy, the Israelite
                tenants plotted the murder of the Lord.
            The Lord accepted the vinegar, the gall of rejection which faithless
                vinedressers offered by mocking, spitting and murder.
            Behold: Atonement and redemption through the Lord’s acceptance of the
                vinegar of the vineyard at the culmination of the apostasy. The Lord drinks
                for the redemption and forgiveness of man.
            Pentecost: the giving of the vineyard to others by the gift of the Holy Spirit,
                the Spirit of the Living Word, the Christ.
            Judgment on faithless tenants by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple
                in AD 70, and the casting away (Diaspora) of the Jews.

Part 2: This Present Vineyard
           Earth the present vineyard of God, vineyard of the Holy Spirit.
            The Earth is also on lease; a lease is not forever.
            People in the vineyard of the Earth like those in Moses’ vineyard:
                all by nature children of wrath.
           The Word of God is now going forth to all nations.
           Man by nature rejects the Word of God, and so those on Earth
                will reject the Living Word now given by the Holy Spirit.
           Only the supernatural gift of faith by the grace of God and the indwelling Holy
               Spirit can move a man or woman to love and obey the Word of God.
           As God used the Israelite tenants in Moses’ vineyard, so He uses and will use
                Gentile tenants in the vineyard of the Earth.
           The length, breadth and duration of the last great apostasy.
           But the vinegar of the last apostasy will be drunk by the tenants
                and faithless vinedressers themselves, not by the Lord.
           There remains no further redemption from the rejection of the
                offer of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
           The Lord Himself will tread the winepress of the wrath of God at the
                culmination of the Earth’s apostasy, the final apostasy.
           Judgment on faithless tenants by the destruction of the Earth in the event
                called “the Apocalypse,” and the final casting away.

How rich is the parable of the vineyard! How startling the wisdom and how relevant a proper understanding, not only for things past but also for things present and to come.

From this parable we learn about the covenant given through Moses and the role of Israel in the vineyard. We learn how the law—that is, the Father’s truth and commands standing alone, without the gift of faith in the Son—could not and cannot save; not only can it not save, it brings forth deadly fruits. We see dramatically why we need the Son and grow more to fear and to love Him. And we see what the future holds, for what happened in Moses’ vineyard will happen again, but on a worldwide scale.

A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around,
dug the wine vat and built a tower.
And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.
Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that he might
receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers.
And they took and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
Again he sent them another servant,
and at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head,
and sent him away shamefully treated.
And again he sent another, and him they killed;
and many others, beating some and killing some.
Therefore, still having one son, his beloved,
he also sent him to them last, saying, “they will respect my son.”
But those vinedressers said among themselves, “This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.”
And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.
Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come and destroy the vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.
Have you not read this Scripture:
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

This parable was first given by Isaiah in poignant tones at 5:1-7. Jesus spoke it again one morning when He was teaching in the Jerusalem temple. Those present—the religious leaders and Israelite people—should have been familiar with Isaiah’s earlier rendition of the parable which explained certain features: the vineyard belonged to the “Lord of hosts” and the vineyard itself was the people of Israel. They should also have been familiar with Isaiah’s lament: when God looked for justice in the vineyard He found oppression, and when He looked for righteousness He found weeping.

The man and the vineyard are temporal symbols of great spiritual realities. The “man”, as we have seen, was the Lord of hosts: God. The vineyard was the nation of Israel: Jews descended from Jacob, the patriarch to whom God had given the new name “Israel”. The vineyard was a ‘spiritual place,’ as it were, comprised of the people to whom God had chosen to reveal Himself.

The things of the Spirit of God can only be given to the spirits of men, since truth is spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). In particular, the truth of God is given to men by spoken or written words of truth; by His words, God reveals His heart and spirit to human hearts and spirits and then men, in their hearts and spirits, either receive or reject Him. Therefore the “ground” of a vineyard of God is always made up of the hearts and spirits of men, and to be in a vineyard of God is to be where His Word is made known. Wherever God’s Word goes forth is, metaphorically speaking, a spiritual ‘place’¹; it is a situation where His words are cast like spiritual seeds onto the ground of human hearts.

In the parable of the sower Jesus clearly explained that His words are like seeds cast onto the soil of human hearts (Matthew 13:1-23). To understand this properly we need to realize that God’s words are spiritual and life-giving; Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). As the apostle Peter explained, men and women are born to eternal life through“incorruptible [seed]…the Word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23). The Psalmist cried, “Revive me according to Your Word!”; “Strengthen me according to Your Word”; “Establish Your Word to Your servant!”; “Your Word has given me life”; “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of shekels of gold and silver”; “I hope in Your Word”; “I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life”; “The entrance of Your words gives light”; and “I rejoice at Your Word!” (all from Psalm 119)

Behold: the words of God are seeds of life, and Scripture the bread of life. For “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Jesus calls the place of the vinedressers not the, but “a” vineyard. This allows for more than one vineyard. In fact, in the history of man and Earth there have been others; the Garden of Eden was the first, where the Word was given in small measure. Then Abraham, Noah and others received a greater revelation. Then came the vineyard of this parable, which we could call Moses’ vineyard or the house of Moses, where the Lord of hosts spoke through Moses to the Israelites. As time went on, God revealed more of His mind and words through prophets He sent to Moses’ vineyard.

But God’s revelation did not end with Moses’ vineyard. Later came Jesus, the Living Word Himself, full of grace and truth. And as the proclamation of Jesus goes forth now to all nations, the entire world is become a vineyard. ² So, while the parable had specific application to the Israelites in a former age, it also has typical significance for the present age. We can understand the world today by understanding Moses’ vineyard of a bygone day.

Let’s pause to consider the meaning of the word ‘law’, frequently used in Scripture. Simply put, sometimes ‘law’ means the Torah given through Moses, also called the Mosaic law or Mosaic code. But sometimes it means the Ten Commandments and at other times it means the whole Word/Scriptures/truth/wisdom of God. The various meanings have the potential to create confusion, so it is important to read carefully. When the Psalmists speak of the law, one has the sense they mean the whole Scripture (which, of course, was not yet complete when they wrote). But when the apostle Paul wrote about the ‘law’ he was usually referring to the Torah, for he was at pains to teach about the place of it in God’s work with man. Thus the word ‘law’ must always be considered in context.

The Torah was, in its time, the most comprehensive revelation yet given to man. It contained detailed commands for behavior toward God and other men, prescribed rituals for religious observance, created a priesthood, set in place gifts and sacrifices, painted types and shadows of things to come, promised blessing for obedience, promised cursing for disobedience, and taught, explained and exhorted. The Torah was complex and demanding. It was also divine, holy, and life-giving to any who could keep it. It contained the Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image [and] bow down to them…
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…
4. Observe the Sabbath…
5. Honor your father and your mother…
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness…
10. You shall not covet…

But that is not all. Moses’ law contained a total of 613 rigorous commandments set out in four Bible books, Exodus through Deuteronomy. We need only examine them to see how onerous they were. Moses exhorted the Jews to make this revelation their rule, purpose, and very code of life:

You shall make an altar to burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia wood (30:1).

These are only a very few of the many, many commands imposed in the Torah. It contained, in effect, all the rules for vineyard occupation: everything the Jews must do to receive the promised blessings. But as time would show, this Torah was a terrible weight for mere mortals. Indeed, time would show that none could bear it.

A hedge is used to mark a boundary line and keep strangers out. This is a picture of God’s choice of the Israelites as a people uniquely favored to receive His Word at that time. The Israelites were rescued out of Egypt and brought to Mount Sinai to be planted in the vineyard of the law, the Torah. It would not be given to others; for a time the Gentiles would be “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). From this we learn that God’s Word must be given to men and women by a sovereign act of God. They cannot of their own devices choose it or reach out and take it; in other words, they cannot plant their own vineyard. They might try, but it would not be a vineyard of God because He is utterly sovereign over His own.

The wine vat represents an expectation of fruit, a return on the word-seeds sprinkled upon the hearts of the Israelites. It is man’s work to keep the Word in order that it may bear fruits of obedience and love, including love of the truth; these are good spiritual fruits, as we shall see.

However, the wine vat, or winepress, is not typically used in Scripture to represent the production or enjoyment of happy fruits; the Greek word is hupolenion, which means the trough or lower part, underneath the press, and it is used dramatically and figuratively in the Bible to represent treading and crushing in the sufferings of Christ (Isaiah 63:2,3), and the wrath and judgment of God (Lamentations 1:15, Revelation 14:19,20).

The tower represents God’s covenant of promises, mighty and strong. He promised to guard, protect and provide for the Israelites if they kept His Word. In Bible times a vineyard tower was occupied by a guard while grapes were ripening on the vine. If there was no fruit, the tower would be empty; there would be no guard and no protection. But if and while there was fruit, God would protect.

Together the wine vat, representing man’s part, and the tower, representing God’s part, illustrate the conditional nature of God’s covenant with the Israelites. In return for the Word (the Torah), they should yield fruit unto their divine landlord. However, the metaphor of a wine press is ominous, given its typical use in Scripture to illustrate both the suffering of Jesus and God’s divine wrath. Indeed, the picture of a wine vat is a harbinger of what was to come. It prepares our hearts for an unhappy outcome.

Note: the Lord of Hosts did not give the vineyard to Israel. No, He “leased” it to them. Under the law, a lease has certain characteristics that are relevant to understanding the parable.

For one thing, a lease is not forever. When a man gives a gift it is forever, but a lease is a temporary arrangement for a pre-determined period of time. This is significant, and is another harbinger of what was to come.

A second characteristic of a lease is that a landlord is not required to honor it, nor allow tenants to remain in possession, unless they observe all the terms and pay the rent on time. If they do not, the landlord is within his rights to evict them, without mercy.

The Torah in effect contained all the terms of the vineyard lease, and illustrates both the conditional and the temporary nature of God’s planting in Moses’ vineyard. The lease was dependant upon good performance; the Jewish tenants must keep and obey the words of God, or lose the vineyard. But in any case, even if tenants perform all the terms of a lease, it will still pass away. Although it may be prolonged, the end is always in sight. It is destined to pass away; that is the nature of a lease. The time always comes when the owner takes back his property.

So we see that from the very beginning the tenants had only temporary occupation of the vineyard. The end was already in the mind of God.

To understand this parable we must realize that God was no more than a landlord to the Israelites. This will be a difficult thing to accept for those who have a different idea about national Israel and the role of the Hebrews in the vineyard.

³ Only a landlord! This is a far cry from the Father-son, Abba-child relationship that would follow with the later “gift” of the vineyard through and in the Son, the eternal gift by the full revelation of Jesus.

That the lease was to mere tenants only is a clear and indisputable picture of the relational distance God maintained with His people during this dispensation.

Commentators generally agree that the vinedressers represent the priestly class: those charged with offering sacrifices to God, overseeing the tabernacle, guiding and governing the sheep in matters of doctrine and practice, keeping the Word, and otherwise ensuring purity in national observances of the law. They acted as priests between God and the people of Israel. Theirs was a weighty honor and obligation, but the people also had an obligation to keep the Word and teach their children. However the Greek word translated in the New King James version “vinedressers” actually has more to do with the tilling of soil than the tending of a vine. Nonetheless, in this reflection we will use the popular term and in our book to come we hope to expand upon the significance of the Greek, which is lacking in most translations. For the Greek has more to do with the preparation of the soil and adds a wealth of understanding regarding God's purposes for this vineyard and all that happened in it.

The priests, scribes and elders of Jesus’ time were the continuing vinedressers, albeit largely faithless, who still oversaw the vineyard because it had not yet been taken away from them. They and the rest of the population stood, spiritually speaking, in the same place as their ancestors who first heard Moses.

God’s eternal abode is in heaven. Although God is always everywhere, in heaven and on earth, unbelief and indwelling sin spiritually separate man from Him. In this sense, God is far from us. He made a unique and marvelous visitation to Moses and the people when, at Mount Sinai, He gave them the law. But then He went away again, leaving the vinedressers to their work; this is another picture of the relational distance He maintained with the Israelites. The Lord did not stay as a father might, but departed as a landlord would.

Vintage time is the season of the grape harvest. The landlord sent a servant to the tenant-vinedressers. Note: a ‘servant’ is closer to the heart of his master than a tenant is to a landlord. In those times, servants usually shared a house with their master. We can assume the servant, unlike the tenants, was from the same house as the landlord. He was from the house of God, a much different situation than being of the house of Moses. The servant was, in effect, being sent into a house of strangers.

The servant was a prophet of God with a message to proclaim to the priests and people in the vineyard. A true prophet is one who has received God’s words and speaks them; he reveals the truth and the heart and the mind of God, and this was the task of the servant.

…That the servant might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers.

By proclaiming God’s truth, the servant-prophet would test the fruit of the vineyard. How so? Understand that the Jews had had ample time to observe, keep, and feast their souls upon the law. Had they done so (if able to do so), they would have minds washed by the Word, growing in knowledge, love and obedience. Further, they would have recognized and welcomed God’s servant, for to receive a prophet as such—that is, as one speaking the truth—would demonstrate the love of truth which is the fruit of a sanctified heart.⁴ But rejection would indicate the Word had failed to bear fruit.

Note: the first servant was sent to receive only “some” of the fruit of the vineyard. This is no small point, but illustrates that the fullness of the dispensation had not yet been attained. Furthermore, a person might think the landlord expected to receive good fruits, and of course in a purely business relationship this would be the case. But this was no ordinary landlord, no ordinary lease, and no ordinary vineyard. The frustrated expectation of a good return shows not only that the vinedressers were unjust toward the servant but also, as we will see, that men will not and cannot yield good fruit when placed under the naked burden of the law of God…

The vinedressers took the landlord’s servant and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

The servant—the prophet—was beaten and sent away. From this we must acknowledge that the seeds of the law, a law holy and good, had not borne fruit—at least, not fruit that was holy and good. What was going on here? This question needs to be asked, and the answer is enormously instructive.

The workings of the Word in the hearts of the vinedressers and the people of the vineyard had produced the vinegar of disobedience, including a hatred of God’s Word. The people did not want to hear any more, and they hated the servant who spoke to them. Even though they had seen the powerful hand of God in their salvation out of Egypt, even though they had heard the thunder on Mount Sinai when the commandments were given; even though they had seen Moses’ face shining with the glory of God; even though they had seen miracle after miracle; even though they had experienced evidence after evidence of the mercy and the wrath of God, still they were unwilling and unable to hear His words or receive His servant.

A people favored to receive the seeds of the law had not only disobeyed it, they had grown to despise it. They had developed to such a state that they beat and rejected a servant of the Word. Their hearts were hardened, not humble or willing. We might say that over the years the vinedressers had cultivated not fruit, but gall. Through Jeremiah, God cried to them:

The living water Moses speaks of here is the true Word, the words of God by which man is washed: true teachings and commands for safe and godly spiritual practices. Broken cisterns are false teachings, disobedience and occult spiritual practices that bring death.⁵ The vinedressers rejected God’s Word and turned to broken cisterns, and by so doing they effectively rejected Him.

Jeremiah said the vinedressers “handled” the law but did not “know” the Lord. This is important. It reveals again that they were not intimates of the landlord: not His servants, not His children, not of His household. They were mere tenants; even as they carried the Arc of the Testament in their wanderings, the Word was hidden inside and they were forbidden to touch it.

The Lord God could not have been surprised that the vinedressers persecuted His servant. He expected it. He, above all, would have been aware that the tenants did not “know” Him. As strangers to Him they were also strangers to His Word and therefore unable to receive it (John 8:43-47). They also could not receive the servant He sent, so they struck him down.

Yet in the final analysis we must say it was the Lord of hosts Himself who ‘struck’ His servant: The vinedressers acted, but only because the Lord permitted it; the psalmist cried in outrage when he prayed to God, “Pour out Your indignation upon them, and let Your wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate; Let no one dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom You have struck…” (Psalm 69:24-26).

Why would the Lord permit persecution, even ordain it? We cannot fully know the purposes of God, but we do know that He rewards those who endure persecution for His sake—greatly rewards them (Matthew 5:10-12). Also, persecutions are one of the bitter fruits of the law and we know from Paul’s epistle to the Romans that the law was given as a ‘schoolmaster’—that is, so we can learn from it: And from the persecutions and apostasy of the tenant vinedressers we learn much about the nature of God’s Word and man’s natural alienation from it and those who love it. Further, persecutions test, prove, and add to the sin which fills the cup and, at the same time, lays the foundation for the grace to come.

The fact is, the law was never intended to bear good fruit among the tenants in the vineyard, and the servants were not sent for their sakes. Peter explains that the prophets were actually sent to the Israelites for our sakes—for glory yet to be revealed:

Persecutions do not indicate that there is a problem with the law. No, the problem is with our hearts and persecutions are the fruit of natural unbelief and hostility toward the Word. We must be schooled by the experiences of the Israelites, which show the futility of simply giving God’s law—that is, the Word without faith—to man and then leaving him to his own devices.

The law alone is weak to save; alone, it cannot reconcile unbelieving man to God because we do not love it and cannot obey it. Indeed, the law does not save, it condemns. It produces not fruit, but gall. This will be the case in any vineyard occupied by mere tenants; whenever those who handle the law do not know the Lord they will do as the Israelites did: disobey it and grow increasingly to despise it, bringing forth fruits of death. For when we are “in the flesh, the lusts of sin which [are] stirred up by the law [reign] in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (WT, Romans 7:5). In other words, man, left to his own devices, will apostatize.

All the Scriptures teach and show that man, by nature, rejects the Word of God. Even Adam, who was not at the time under the influence of indwelling sin, apostatized, and by his disobedience lost the first vineyard; in this we have a dim shadow of things to come. As the Scriptures progress they sketch increasingly clearer pictures for us.

As were the Israelites, so are we. By nature we are all children of wrath, strangers to the Word of God. Over time, with exposure to the Word, the hearts of the natural man becomes increasingly hardened to it to follow after their own imaginations, desires and idolatries. This is what happened in Moses’ house:

The Israelites turned from the righteousness of God and so He gave them over to their own fancies and their own values: their own righteousness and religion. Strongholds of unbelief waxed large in their minds and their propensity to do evil against the Word was enlarged until, in service of their religion, they slew the Son of God. ⁶

This same spiritual process occurs whenever natural men and women are planted in a vineyard of God. Even though God reveals Himself to them—gives Himself by His Word—they will naturally turn away. And when the people turn away, God lets them go. He “turns them over” to their own ways and they follow their own spirituality.

When natural man does not have the words of God he flounders, lost in sin. When that same man is given the Word he may reject it out of hand, or he might receive it with joy at first, as some of the Israelites did, promising obedience; the Bible tells us that Moses “took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people and they said, ‘All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient [to His Word]’ ” (Exodus 24:7). But they were not obedient. And they ended by mistreating and hating and killing servants of the Word. This falling away is borne of natural enmity toward God, which manifests in the rejection of His Word and His law. For we are all, by nature, enemies and strangers to Him—enemies and strangers in our minds. We are under the sway of the god of this world, Satan, who snatches the truth of the Word away from our comprehension so we cannot perceive it, and our indwelling desires choke truth before it can even begin to bear fruit. We may be zealous towards God, but our zeal is not in the knowledge of Him (Romans 10:2). The natural man will apostatize from the Word. And over time, the depth and length and breadth of his apostasy will increase. For, as Paul explains in his pivotal letter to the Romans, the law takes its opportunity to give life to sin in the heart of man:

Paul knew whereof he spoke. He was a “Pharisee supreme,” and before his conversion he consented to and approved of the Lord’s death and the murder of His disciples. The law had done its full, dreadful work in Paul.

The main lesson of the vineyard parable, then, concerns the progressive hardening of the human heart toward the law and the Word and the people of God. The lesson is tragically unfolded in all its detail in the experiences of the Israelites in the Old Testament.

Through the law comes sin, and over time the cup is increasingly filled with the vinegar of iniquity. This was the situation of the Jews and of their priests and leaders: the law entered and sin increased (Romans 5:20). Thus was the true state of their hearts revealed. And now the Word goes into the world, increasing sin and revealing the true state of our hearts; therefore the situation of the Jews is our situation also, and the situation of our priests and pastors and leaders unless we and they have received the grace of faith, a supernatural work which changes a man’s heart and grafts him into the household of God. Without grace, we tend always to apostasy. Whether in hidden or in open unbelief, we will turn away.

And what unfolded in Moses’ vineyard is unfolding now, beneath our very eyes, in the vineyard of the Earth.

Rejection of the Word takes different forms. Some simply leave a vineyard (synagogue, Church, believing home, etc.) or, remaining in it, close their minds and ears utterly. They openly reject the Word and make no pretense. But a more subtle and dangerous rejection of the Word is to twist it and distort it, to misrepresent it and impose one’s private interpretation upon it—to hew broken cisterns of false teaching or practice; to be zealous, but not in truth. These are the acts of faithless vinedressers and blind teachers of the Word.

Faithless vinedressers bring many curses upon themselves. To have the Word of God and mishandle, demean or distort it is serious sin. Moses warned his people:

Blind religious leaders not only endanger themselves and their descendents, they are dangerous to God’s servants. This is abundantly demonstrated in the parable of the vineyard.⁷ There is something about hewing broken cisterns when one has the Word of God at hand that actually stokes enmity toward truth and toward servants of truth, spilling forth more and more of the vinegar of rejection and the gall of unbelief. As tenant vinedressers continue in error their blindness increases; believing themselves wise, they become fools. With the passing of time they increase strongholds of false beliefs, increasing the distance between their own wisdom and the wisdom of God and, therefore, between Him and them. They grow increasingly enamored of their own interpretations, their traditions, and their power and influence within a religious system. They also grow increasingly inclined to hate those who really have, love and obey the Word. (Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees!)

This growing dull and closing of the eyes developed over centuries during which the Jews had available to them all that God had revealed thus far in His Word. Their scribes copied and recopied Scriptures. Their priests offered up sacrifices. They had religious festivals and traditions; they had elders, scribes and teachers (rabbis). But they didn’t really understand, for they were only tenants who “did not know the Lord.” It was inevitable that they would eventually have to leave the vineyard. But the lease was not up yet, for the cup was not full: it had yet to be filled to the brim with gall—gall and vinegar. And so, God would send other servants to the vinedressers…

The man sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated. And again he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.

God sent not just one, but many faithful servant-prophets into the vineyard: Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Hanani, Micaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist—there is a long list. But the vinedressers bared their fangs. Dr. Herbert Lockyer observes that the privileged religious leaders:

The laments of the persecuted servants can be painful to read. Jeremiah mourned for the people: “I would comfort myself in sorrow; my heart is faint in me…For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt. I am mourning…” (8:18,21). And he mourned for himself:

Jeremiah was alone with his love of the Word: alone among strangers who also had it—but only in their hands, not in their hearts. He was cursed and mocked by the tenants, abused by them. Indeed, God would endure the repeated abuse of His servants one by one, year upon year, century upon century. But the worst, and at the same time, the best, was yet to come…

Still having one son, his beloved, the landlord also sent him to them last saying, “they will respect my son.”

The time arrived when the Lord God had sent all His servant-prophets to the vineyard. There were none left to send. The Old Testament revelation was complete, the sour cup of the law almost full. There followed four centuries of silence. And then it was time to send the Lord Jesus, the beloved Son Himself—the One who would receive the full cup.

We must not think that God was Himself deceived to actually think the vinedressers would respect His Son. This verse expresses what a business-landlord might think, for our instruction and to contrast the terrible betrayal of the vinedressers with what could rightfully have been expected. For in reality, God was not sending His Son simply as a rent-collector. He had a far greater purpose in mind. He knew exactly what He was doing and what was going to happen. He was doing an amazing work; He was sending Jesus the Son to Earth as the promised Messiah to the Jews and to all nations; in fact, He was sending the Son in order to redeem us from the burden of the law.

But true to form, the tenants rejected the Son also—the Son especially, for He was the Word Himself, bringing the fullness of the truth of God. He was, in fact, the divine fulfillment of the very law the vinedressers professed but had grown to hate. He was the redeemer promised under their law. But by now their apostasy from it was complete and total, as their actions would shortly prove…

Those vinedressers said among themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.”

Here the religious leaders reveal the great evil in their hearts. Even while plotting Jesus’ murder they sensed at some level that He was who He said He was—or at least, in the darkness of their blindness and self-deception they recognized that He was good and innocent and righteous—for they said among themselves, “this is the heir.” They did not want to acknowledge Him but His words, His miracles, His power, His very presence, must have been unmistakable. He, not they, was master of the house. So they hated Him, and when they could not discredit Him they chose the darkest way, plotting to kill. Consider how the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, indignant and resentful at the favor Joseph received, sold him into Egypt; this was a picture of how the patriarchs of the temple in Jesus’ time, indignant at the favor He received, would sell Him into the hands of Gentile rulers.

The vinedressers were building their own temple, a temple made with hands. They had disobeyed Moses’ warning about not adding to or taking away from the Word in many ways, by their traditions, idolatries and their own wisdom (consider the Talmud, a secondary ‘bible’ in Judaism). The Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to be rabbis (teachers) and pastors and priests over the people. Not only were they threatened when many willingly heard Jesus, He also criticized them openly—them and their false doctrine. They thought themselves wise but Jesus said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes” (Matthew 11:25). They coveted a good reputation but Jesus called them a “brood of vipers” and said, “How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (12:34). They sought a sign but He said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign…” (12:39).

In pride and folly, the tenant vinedressers plunged headlong into ultimate darkness. They orchestrated the slaying of the Son, Christ Jesus the Living Word, by a shameful, excruciating and accursed method: whipping Him until his flesh was a bloody pulp, nailing Him naked onto a cross of wood, and hanging Him in the baking sun to die. This would fill the cup to the brim—to overflowing—with vinegar.

But it was the Lord's doing. As He had struck the prophets, so He struck the Son. Indeed, as one crushed in the press of the harvest, He struck Him: “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the Man who is My Companion, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the Shepherd…” (Zechariah 13:7).

Even a beginner Bible student knows that Jesus’ death—the timing and manner and way of it—were all foretold by the prophets. So we know it was a thing ordained, a thing in the mind and purpose of God even before time was. Jesus went willingly to His death at the hands of the tenant vinedressers, yet so anguished was He that He sweated drops of blood (Luke 22:44).

From the Psalms we learn Jesus would be scorned and ridiculed, that His hands and feet would be pierced, that some would gamble for His clothes, and that God would forsake Him in His moment of agony⁹. Men would mock Him and spit upon Him. In Psalm 69 we read the Messianic prophecy that Jesus would receive the vinegar and gall of shame, reproach, rejection and hatred:

Of course, Jesus frequently forewarned the disciples about His approaching humiliation and death. He said it would happen in Jerusalem, centre of the religious leaders, for “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem—O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!” (Luke 13:33,34). Without doubt, everything was foreordained: it was the Lord’s doing—not only Jesus’ death, but also Judas’ betrayal, the murderous plotting of the Pharisees, and the blood-thirsty chant of the people (“Crucify Him! Crucify Him”). John wrote of the Israelites:

So in the end the blind vinedressers—those who could not understand with their heart—filled the cup of rejection. And behold: it was the Lord Jesus Himself who drank it, going to His death at their hands. He took the vinegar they rendered unto Him in return for the word-seeds He had sprinkled upon the soil of their hard hearts. Of course He did; it was part of the work He had come to do:

Hanging on the cross of His death, Jesus drank the vinegar offered by those who had nailed Him there. This vinegar, the vinegar of death, was the sum total of the fruit of the vineyard of the Torah. And with that, the work was finished; the law had brought to fruition all the potential for unbelief and sin that was in the hearts of the tenants. The fullness of the times was upon The Lord, and He accepted the bitter harvest.

The lease was up. The bitter grapes were ripe. The Lord Himself was crucified at the hands of the tenants and their unrighteousness was proven and complete; therefore, their house would be left to them desolate. The time of wrath had come upon them; this the world saw in AD 70, in the destruction of Jerusalem¹⁰and the final casting out of the Jews (foreshadowed by previous scatterings) to be lost in the world. The city was laid siege and residents starved. In the end the temple was burned down and the city reduced to rubble in madness and fury. From servant-prophet Ezekiel:

The Old Testament prophets foretold again and again the coming destruction of Jerusalem: “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished…” (Zechariah 14:1). But the tenants in possession, blind and hard of heart, could not hear.

But behold: in the time of wrath, Messiah made atonement. And a better thing was come…

After Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. This is the giving of the vineyard to others. It is the gift of an eternal vineyard—the Living Word—to the children of God.

Pentecost, then, was fulfillment of the promises of God and marked the giving of the vineyard to others:

Peter explained to incredulous on-lookers, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words…this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh…and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:14,16-17,21).

Precious is the promise of spiritual re-birth by the giving of the Holy Spirit who will indwell the disciples of Christ, moving them to walk in God’s statutes and, contrary to their nature, to love and keep His judgments. Where the law was weak, Jesus, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is now the living Word and our strong salvation. Ezekiel again:

This promise of spiritual rebirth by the indwelling Spirit is the new covenant, infinitely better than the old. It is mercy, not law. The gift is infinitely better than the lease, giving life where the other could not: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son” (Romans 8:3). The Son Himself makes us “sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter [the law] but of the Spirit; for the letter [the law] kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthian 3:6).

Under the new covenant the children of God not only “handle the law”, they can also say they “know the Lord”. By His Holy Spirit they know Him—by the Spirit who quickens their hearts and witnesses to them of the truth and the life that is in the Word.

Have you not read this Scripture: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”?

Who are the builders here? They were the tenant vinedressers who, striving under the law, built their own religious system and doctrine; a temple made with hands. Who is the stone they rejected? Jesus of course, who would leave their temple to them desolate and become the cornerstone of a new house to which believers, one-by-one, are added as living stones. With them God is building a new temple, a spiritual house made with spiritual hands, the vineyard of the Holy Spirit. As Peter, a fisherman, explained to the people and religious elders of the day, Jesus “is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone…Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:11-12).

The vineyard gift is the new covenant, given in Jesus by His Holy Spirit, eternal and unconditional. Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing—no, not even our natural sin and disobedience to the law—will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38,39).

The vineyard gift is infinitely better than was the vineyard lease. But all need to ask: are they tenants in a vineyard of God? Or, are they outside the hedge? Or, are they really in the faith, having received the eternal gift?

Under the new covenant, all Earth becomes the last and final vineyard of God. The Word is now going forth to all peoples and all nations. And what happened in Moses’ vineyard, culminating in the rejection of the Word Himself, Jesus, and the complete destruction of Jerusalem, foreshadows what is and what is to come on Earth. The whole world is on lease, as it were, and the lease is due to run out when the final cup of rejection is full. Until then, there will be the following types of people in the vineyard:

Strangers: These are strangers to the Word, those who have never heard it—those outside the hedge.

Those who openly reject the Word: These are people who hear the Gospel, do not believe it, and honestly acknowledge the fact. They are the “natural men” who perceive not the things of the Spirit; nor can they (1 Corinthians 2:14). Their rejection and disobedience go also to fill up the cup, but they are without the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

The remnant: These are the disciples, the ones who hear the Word—that is, perceive in their spirits the things of the Spirit of God. They have the Word “mixed with faith” (Hebrews 4:2). These are the ones who, when everyone else turns away, say unto the Lord, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Their hearts are like good soil, planted and cultivated by the Lord of the vineyard Himself to receive the Word and bear good fruit. They are from every nation and tongue—brought in from the north, the south, the east and the west. They are the blessed recipients of the gift of the eternal vineyard through Jesus, their Lord and Redeemer; they are the remnant God reserves to the glory of His name.

Tenant vinedressers: These are those who “handle the law but do not know the Lord”. They are the antitypes of the Israelite vinedressers who had only a leasehold interest in the vineyard. Many are found in the cults and sects that take the name of Christ, some of which, like Mormonism, have become huge and powerful. Others belong in organized “Christendom”; they are part of that large population of people who comprise that societal force that William Wilberforce termed “cultural Christianity” when he wrote in the 1700’s. I fear it is true that, as many more illumined than I have observed, (such as Mr. Wilberforce), in cultural Christianity many professions of faith are mistaken and empty. Wrote Arthur Pink (in the mid 1900’s):

Various groups differ in degrees of faithfulness or faithlessness. Only a few, a very few, could be called faithful.

There are those “Churches” that claim the Bible as their sacred text but started off on the wrong foundation, such as the dangerously absurd (Jim Jones - Jonestown); the spiritist (A Course in Miracles); Freemasonry and Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are large groups with secondary ‘bibles’: Mormonism with the Book of Mormon, Christian Science with Science and Health and Seventh Day Adventists with Questions on Doctrine. Perhaps Word Faith belongs in the category of those commonly referred to as “cults”. Then, there is the ultra rich and powerful Roman Catholic Church, believed by many to be the beast of Revelation.

But there are those Churches that began upon a more solid foundation, built upon the light of the Reformation. These turned religion and the world around. They contributed a wealth of teaching and understanding that have fed believers in centuries following. Yet, they are themselves becoming a beast: from the patently absurd (Yahweh Yogis and yogic contemplation of Christ at a U.S. “Lutheran” Church) to the few that are truly faithful and everything in between: the mystic, the lukewarm, the cold, the liberal, the psychologizing, the contemplative, the charismatic, the compromisers, the Church marketers, the dominionists, the emerging, the organic, and those who prefer the way of the Labyrinth to the way of the Lord. There are now Evangelicals-and-Catholics-together and even Zen-Christianity. There are exposed hypocrites (Ted Haggard), Christian shamans (Elijah List, Generals of Intercession), false promisers of peace and self-actualization (Rick Warren, Unity, Crystal Cathedral) and the occult (the aptly-named “Vineyard” Church, Toronto Blessing, Healing Rooms, Women’s Aglow, Benny Hinn, Four Square). There are laughable wrecks and frauds (green prayer cloths, holy spring water and most televangelists), para-church wizards (Joel’s Army, YWAM), the Judaizers (the “New Messianic”) and the racially-motivated (British-Israel). There are the more faithful, the less so, the completely faithless, and various combinations of all the above, with even the Reformers’ own Churches tragically embracing all the psychology, liberalism, occultism and different manifestations of unbelief.

Moreover, the Word is adulterated, altered by weak or downright “new age” bible versions like The Message¹². Untold numbers of charismatic, liberal or “emerging” magazines (Charisma, Servant, Christianity Today) and songwriters (Arrow in the Hand, Vineyard) bring false teaching. Catch the Fire is a traveling circus and the masses are deceived by false prophets like Cindy Jacobs and Rick Joyner, just like Moses’ people danced at the high places and were deceived by dreamers and sorcerers. Word faith tele-evangelists get rich promising to make us rich: it is sad to see one of T.D. Jakes’ “illustrated sermons”: mime artists with white-painted faces “act out” what it is to blow your money on a shopping binge while he berates us for mishandling our finances and promises that he will teach us how to “position ourselves” so we can get everything our deceptive little hearts desire. But this is an extreme example of apostasy; subtle instances are also everywhere to be seen, even in the little Church down the street. With the passage of time faithless vinedressers of these last days do their tragic part to fill the cup of God’s last vineyard with the vinegar of rejection of truth.

These things are hard, but what does the Bible say? Should we refuse to hear, refuse to understand? What would the Lord require? Consider the vineyard of the Jews and be aware. Paul:

Let those who can hear, hear: the “spiritual food” that “all ate” was the Word of God. But, “with most of them, God was not well pleased.” The things that Paul exhorts us to take as our examples are the actions of a people who had the Word of God—that is, “were baptized into Moses”—but they apostatized and were disobedient. They worshipped golden calves and followed false prophets, all the while proclaiming their faithfulness. They married, divorced, and took strangers into their beds. The Bible does not paint a pretty picture of what happened in Moses’ time and it is not meet to paint a prettier picture for ourselves, for the heart of man has not changed. Paul says it clearly: “These things” were written for us. They not only help warn the remnant away from similar errors, they also illustrate what is to come upon those of us who live in the days of “the ends of the ages”.

“These things” are unfolding beneath our very eyes. As Peter wrote, many now follow destructive ways and false teachers:

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he spoke frankly to Jews who rejoiced outwardly in the law but, in fact, had turned away from it. Such is the case in Christendom today. Like the Jews before us, we hold ourselves out as loving the Lord and following Him but in fact follow our own ways. Christians preach against sexual sin but divorce and remarry at will (adultery); they hotly condemn occultists in the secular world—Wiccans and shamans—but are unaware that they themselves practice occultism (spiritual adultery), even witchcraft and magic¹³:

Even today, the name of God is blasphemed among non-believers due to the actions of many Christians. They hold themselves out as teachers of right and wrong and as lovers of the Word but in mind, word and deed they have in fact turned away—apostatized.

Vinedressers and ecclesiastical organizations have their place, and God in His wisdom continues to choose and use them. He has ordained them all, if not in the way they believe; He still plants tenants in the vineyard and gives them His law. However, their true nature and purpose are veiled to most, including dear saints who mistake man-made temples for the true “church”, the body of Christ. The little-understood reality is that the Church in this dispensation serves many of the same purposes as Israel served previously.¹⁴ And today’s vinedressers are still “under the law” due to lack of a real, saving, divine faith; and as those under the law, the Scriptures remain veiled to them (2 Corinthians 3:14-15¹⁵). They have Bibles but not do not understand them—they are seeing without perceiving and hearing without understanding. For the wisdom of God is “in secret and lieth hid” (WT, 1 Corinthians 2:7) and cannot be perceived except by “the eye” and “the ear” that loves God (1 Corinthians 2:9).

And the Church believes about itself the same things Israel believed, convinced of its blessings at the hand of a God who, tragically, it does not know and does not really love. As it was within Israel, so it is within the greater part of the Church; the vinedressers do not perceive that the Word they depend upon for their salvation actually condemns their apostasy—for the God of the Word ‘lieth hid” to them, hid within His Word.

But, again, God uses it all. He uses not only His disciples but also vinedressers—pastors, priests, scholars, scribes and historians—as miraculously as He used ancient Israel despite its apostasy: not only to teach us by example about man, religion, sin and the law, and not only to prove us and them, but also to keep the Word, at least in some measure—to print it, distribute it, sell it, give it, translate it, carry across land and sea and, in season, to preach and teach it. Further, in an atmosphere of superficial public support for Christianity the real thing can potentially co-exist and be more widely and easily disseminated with a measure of peace. Those with a watchman ministry, in the course of refuting error, contribute to defining and refining the truth; see how God works all things for the good of those who love Him! And if Christ is preached, so much the better. I know of one soul saved through a sermon of Benny Hinn. I know of another led to investigate the Holy Bible through reading the Satanic bible, of all things, because he realized the author hated and feared Jesus and he wanted to find out more about this divine enemy of Satan. Souls have been saved in the gentle, accepting atmosphere of better-led Alpha courses despite the occult doctrine.¹⁶ As Paul said, “What then?...whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:18).

And over the centuries, gifted men of the Church have helped formulate creeds and elucidate doctrine in precious ways: we think of the doctrines of the Trinity and of Scripture, it's inerrancy, divine inspiration, etc., being only two small examples. These careful, lucid explanations of some of the heavenly mysteries have undeniable value. We do not intend to diminish their value. We think of the work of the Reformers, of course, and also of the invaluable Bible scholarship and hard work of men such as James Strong, who gave us Strong's Concordance, and Robert Young who gave us his Analytical Concordance and Literal Translation of the Bible. These are invaluable tools for those who love the Word and wish to study it carefully and thoroughly. Robert Young paid particular attention to the use of the definite and indefinite articles and singular and plural forms of nouns, careful attention to which can open up the meaning of verses that remain obscured in popular translations. Other men and groups of men have left invaluable legacies for believers and done much, much invaluable work. Again, we think of Thayer with his Greek lexicon, Gesenius with his Hebrew, and Alfred Jones and G. Buchanan Gray with their studies of Hebrew proper names, examples only, and think of countless men and women of the Church who worked in obscurity for the Lord. We think of the ministries of Charles Spurgeon and the hymns and writing of John Newton. None of these could have operated as effectively as they did without an organized Church. We recognize their many contributions.

And the pulpit was necessary during the ages before the printing press, when it was almost impossible for ordinary believers to possess the Scriptures. Public reading of the Word was the only way they could learn it. Services and public teaching were all-important. What a blessing was the faithful pulpit! Of course, in God's purposes the unfaithful pulpit also serves His purposes, separating the wheat from the chaff and proving His judgments to be true. And in order for there to be pulpits and teaching and gathering places to hear the word there was a need for organization and structure, and, as always, for the copying and stewardship of precious manuscripts. (Now, however, with the Word available to almost all, and in so many languages, the believer can resort to the Lord and His Word at home, confident that although the pulpit may fail the Holy Spirit will not. He is the teacher, and He teaches through God's Word, and although good preaching is always a blessing, it is not necessary when God is the teacher and we have His Word available for private feasting and study.)

And the Lord uses ecclesiastical and para-church organizations with fingers all around the globe (and, now, the Web) to bring the Word to the nations. And He places some faithful preachers therein—such as, before us, John Newton and Charles Spurgeon (to name only a few), and certainly some today. But others were and are required to operate outside the fold—unwelcome because of their faith, despised like the servants sent to Moses’ vineyard. Consider John Bunyan, imprisoned 12 years for preaching without a license, who from his prison cell wrote about the deceptions of those mired in Churchianity in his book, Pilgrim’s Progress. Consider Erskine, who came to faith after his ordination and was then routed out of the established Church. Consider Martin Luther, led by God to an understanding of truth after donning robes as a monk; then ardent papists excommunicated and hunted him. Consider William Tyndale, murdered like His Lord before Him simply for giving people the Word. He was betrayed into the hands of Roman Catholics and their political associates for 30 pieces of silver by a Reformation Judas, Henry Phillips, a man to whom Tyndale had shown much kindness. As Jesus forewarned: “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (John 16:2). Each generation is confident they would never reject the prophets, but vinedressers always do.

But consider again: all are struck by God. It is His doing. As He struck the prophets and the Son, so many little ones are also struck. Zechariah again: “ ‘Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the Man who is My Companion,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; then I will turn My hand against the little ones…’ ” (Zechariah 13:7).

There may always be a remnant within the more faithful organizations (and many without)—but only a remnant; Isaiah cried that although Israel be as numerous as the sand of the sea, yet only a remnant would be saved (Isaiah 10:22,23, explained at Romans 9:27). But as the Reformers’ own Church grows into a beast we know the end of an era, perhaps even the end of the age, approaches. During the Dark Ages, Roman Catholic vinedressers managed to suppress and subvert the Word, punishing anyone who disagreed with them: imprisoning, torturing or burning them and forcing them to wear yellow crosses. During the time of the Reformation they hunted and burned those who struggled to free the Word for the people, but in the end the Lord brought about a revival of truth similar, perhaps, to those that occurred periodically among the Israelites. What will we see as the present apostasy develops? Will there be another revival of truth, or will the end come? Only the Lord knows.

We find the Greek word apostasia—English ‘apostasy’—twice in New Testament Scriptures. It means defection from truth (Strongs). In the Bible, it refers in particular to defection from God’s truth. In the Septuagint, apostasia is used to translate Hebrew words meaning ‘rebellion’, especially Israel’s rebellion against God.¹⁷ The first use of apostasia is at Acts 21:21 which speaks of “apostasy from Moses” (common translation, “to forsake Moses”). Next we find it in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians where he instructs them about Jesus’ second coming and teaches about a future apostasy (most commonly translated “falling away”). Paul warned his contemporaries not to be looking for the coming of the Lord immediately because the last apostasia—the final apostasy—must come first:

Consider the apostasy of the Jews, which foreshadows the final apostasy. It was not something that happened quickly (as men see it) but, rather, spanned centuries: centuries of population growth and increasing hardness of heart; centuries involving the construction and destruction and reconstruction of temples; centuries of revivals of truth followed by renewed falling away; centuries involving repeated dispersions and re-gatherings of the people; centuries of false prophets and teachers. Is this not a picture of this final age? With Israel, centuries of apostasy culminated in a Pharisaical temple made with ungodly hands that rejected and, in concert with Gentiles, murdered the Lord, He who had planted and watered her with the Word. In these last days we saw, as previously mentioned, the darkening of truth under Roman Catholic dominion, but then came revival in the amazing, turbulent Reformation times. But truth is again being eclipsed as another nighttime approaches. Ultimately all Earth’s inhabitants—vinedressers and Gentiles—will reject the One who planted them by the Word of His mouth.

As another wrote, “A great part of the message of the Old Testament prophets is rebuke for apostasy from God. It is true that the prophets very often rebuked heathen nations also for their sins, but these nations were never accused of apostasy. Only God’s people could apostatize from God…Let us remember what such rebellion meant. The Israelites were God’s people, His ‘peculiar treasure’ (Exodus 19:5). He had saved them from Egypt, the house of bondage. He had made His covenant with them and they had promised to serve Him alone and to keep His commandments. Israel’s apostasy must mean that they broke His covenant, rejected His Word, transgressed His commandments and followed other gods. Israel’s disloyalty to God plays such a part in Old Testament history that this history has sometimes been called a ‘history of apostasy’.”¹⁸

Modern history is also a history of apostasy. And as it ended for Moses’ house, so it will end for us.

As the Word goes forth into the world it brings forth fruit: fruits sweet to the Lord, but also vinegar and gall. In the remnant, if they progress faithfully, it brings forth increasing measures of obedience, and love for and understanding of truth. In others, the greater number as was the case in Moses’ vineyard, it brings forth disobedience and hardening of heart as they wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. Strangers to the Word need to hear it, that their fruits also may be tested and proven. These things must come to pass. Then the end will come.

Then end comes when the cup is full. Then it will be as it was in Moses’ vineyard, but on an apocalyptic scale. The last book of the Bible, the Revelation, confirms this; we read that in the very last days, after the harvest of the remnant, the gathering in of bad fruit begins and then the vineyard of Earth is destroyed:

The Lord treads the final press

When the grapes of the vineyard of the Earth have been harvested, Jesus comes again, in the same manner as He returned to Jerusalem after He was hung outside her gates and the city was destroyed amidst bloodshed and agony. The temple was flattened and the people were judged and cast away to become lost. This was a shadow, a picture, of His next return:

But as we see in the Scripture just read, there is one great difference between the first and second comings of Jesus to His vineyards. Behold: it will not be the Lord who faces the

crush of the press and Himself drinks the vinegar of the final vineyard. No, the next time around He will tread the harvest and those who filled the cup will themselves drink it. Alas, they will empty it unto their own death. For the Lord died only once and then rose again, alive forevermore to redeem those who would believe in Him. He paid the price for the rejection of the law, but He will not pay the price for the final rejection.

The Lord Himself treads the winepress of the final judgment. By the Sword of His mouth He crushes the bitter harvest brought forth in the Earth—the vineyard He planted and loved and nurtured by His Word. Note: the returning Lord destroys not one but all “nations” who reject Him. “Nations” is plural; therefore this prophecy was not completely fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem, as some would say.

The Mosaic cup was, as we know, filled with fruits of disobedience to the law. The second cup, however, is filled with the gall of the rejection of grace. The first vineyard was a vineyard of law, a vineyard of condemnation illustrating man’s helplessness under the law and the penalty for disobedience. In His amazing work, the Lord of Hosts gave His Son as the redemptive Branch to come forth from that vineyard. He was the answer for our blasphemy against the law, and He is our redemption from it. But the final vineyard is the vineyard of redemption itself. It is the vineyard won by the Christ through His own obedience and sacrifice, the vineyard of the Holy Spirit—the vineyard of grace, the vineyard of the divine sacrifice. Alas, there remains no redemption after the rejection of the divine sacrifice; such is the final rejection, and when all is done, it is done. The last cup will be left for ungrateful man to drink himself. There will be no second redeemer, no savior from the vineyard of grace.

The emptying of the cup of the law by Jesus was life to those who believe on Him. It was a mercy offering where the law had failed, an offering for forgiveness and redemption. Where the law was without mercy, Jesus drank the cup in mercy, bore the penalty and obtained forgiveness: divine forgiveness that He now offers to us. He also won the reward of life for perfect obedience to the law: eternal life, which He also offers to us despite our own disobedience. Indeed, after drinking a bitter cup, an accursed cup, He now offers us a sweet and blessed one, the “cup of blessing which we bless…the communion of the blood of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16). Amazing grace! Amazing self-sacrifice: extreme, tender, forgiving and empty of any pride—all goodness and light. But behold: when such grace is rejected, when the holy sacrifice is rejected, there remains no further redemption.

The Lord God has shown that the vineyard of the law is harsh and the penalty for rejection and disobedience also harsh. His law is an insurmountable mountain. It is salt that loses its savor and an impossible burden for man. Yet, and because of this, God has poured out His Son for us in these last days: first on the cross and now by His Holy Spirit to save us from the law and its inevitable penalty for those who remain under it. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Will we now sneer, mock and spit upon His life-offering—His self-offering and self-sacrifice—like the Jews and Gentiles did at the crucifixion?

The end of the age is upon us: we inhabit the final vineyard, the vineyard of the Redeemer by the promised Holy Spirit. There will be no further planted on Earth, for what follows is eternity itself:

Blasphemies that occur under the law can be forgiven, but now HE is come, Amen. To spit upon Him in the vineyard of the law was one thing, but to do so in the vineyard of grace is quite another. Those who pour into the cup of this rejection—the final apostasy, the ultimate blasphemy—will be required to drink it themselves. Behold, it will be given back to them, for there remains no more forgiveness, no further sacrifice: neither in this age, nor in the coming, eternal age.

But the same God who warns of His wrath also declares His mercy: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:15). The parable of the vinedresser is, in the last analysis, one of severity giving birth to mercy—the law bringing forth redemption for man. The Lord Jesus put on Himself the wickedness of us all when He came to suffer at the hands of the vinedressers. At their hands He died: thus, according to Scripture, was He “planted” in an arid vineyard. And from there He came forth, the living from the dead, for:

It is the Lord’s doing, and marvelous in our eyes! Therefore, hear the voice crying in today’s wilderness: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness where your fathers tested the Lord, proved Him and saw His works forty years. Therefore He was angry with that generation and said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.” So He swore in His wrath, “They shall not enter My rest” (Psalm 95:7-11 and Hebrews 3:7-11).

Appendix

Only days after completing this article and, ironically, wanting to read something that would steer her mind away from the topics of this reflection, the author discovered confirming and elaborating views in the writing of one of the saints she most admires. They are reproduced here verbatim, and we know it would please him if any person should be edified thereby.

The saint who wrote the following excerpts is Arthur W. Pink, whom we highly recommend. For deep insights; to be moved to a holy fear and performance of our duties before God; for answers to the really difficult questions; for strong meat—read Arthur Pink.

The following is from an article written by Mr. Pink. He suggests that people’s inability to perceive the apostasy of the Church is partly due to a belief that there are only two classes of persons: believers and unbelievers. But this, he says, is erroneous and misleading. Many believe in Jesus like Muslims believe in Mohammed: sincerely but not savingly.

Mr. Pink understands God’s Word to teach that mankind is divided into three classes: (1) those who have not heard the Word, i.e. those outside the hedge; (2) Those who have heard and received, and (3) those who have heard and only appeared to receive—the nominal people of God. He actually agrees with the author of the above reflection. He simply does not refer to the fourth class considered by the author, namely those who have heard and openly rejected the Word.) Like the author of this reflection, Mr. Pink also derives his understanding from a study of what happened to and within national Israel as taught in Scripture. But, let Mr. Pink tell it in his own words:

No one can read the New Testament attentively without discovering that there is a "believing" in Christ which does not save. In John 8:30, we are told, "As He spake these words, many believed on Him." Mark carefully, it is not said "many believe in Him," but "many believed on Him." Nevertheless one does not have to read much further on in the chapter to discover that those very people were unregenerate and unsaved souls. In verse 44 we find the Lord telling these very "believers" that they were of their father the Devil; and in verse 59 we find them taking up stones to cast at Him. This has presented a difficulty unto some; yet it ought not. They created their own difficulty, by supposing that all faith in Christ necessarily saves. It does not. There is faith in Christ which saves, and there is also a faith in Christ which does not save.

"Among the chief rulers also many believed on Him." Were, then, those men saved? Many preachers and evangelists, as well as tens of thousands of their blinded dupes, would answer, "Most assuredly." But let us note what immediately follows here: "but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:42, 43). Will any of our readers now say that those men were saved? If so, it is clear proof that you are utter strangers to any saving work of God in your own souls. Men who are afraid to hazard for Christ's sake the loss of their worldly positions, temporal interests, personal reputations, or anything else that is dear to them, are yet in their sins—no matter how they may be trusting in Christ's finished work to take them to heaven.

Probably most of our readers have been brought up under the teaching that there are only two classes of people in this world, believers and unbelievers. But such a classification is most misleading, and is utterly erroneous. God's Word divides earth's inhabitants into three classes: "Give none offence, neither to [1] the Jews, nor [2] to the Gentiles, nor [3] to the church of God " (1 Cor. 10:32). It was so during Old Testament times, more noticeable so from the days of Moses onwards. There were first the "gentile" or heathen nations, outside the commonwealth of Israel, which formed by far the largest class. Corresponding with that class today are the countless millions of modern heathen, who are "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Second, there was the nation of Israel, which has to be subdivided into two groups, for, as Romans 9:6, declares, "They are not Israel, which are of Israel." By far the larger portion of the nation of Israel were only the nominal people of God, in outward relation to Him: corresponding with this class is the mass of professors bearing the name of Christ. Third, there was the spiritual remnant of Israel, whose calling, hope and inheritance were heavenly: corresponding to them this day are the genuine Christians, God's "little flock" (Luke 12:32).

The same threefold division among men is plainly discernible throughout John's Gospel. First, there were the hardened leaders of the nation, the scribes and Pharisees, priests and elders. From the start to finish they were openly opposed to Christ, and neither His blessed teaching nor His wondrous works had any melting effects upon them. Second, there were the common people who "heard Him gladly" (Mark 12:37), a great many of whom are said to have "believed on Him" (see John 2:23; 7:31; 8:30; 10:42; 12:11), but concerning whom there is nothing to show that they were saved. They were not outwardly opposed to Christ, but they never yielded their hearts to Him. They were impressed by His Divine credentials, yet were easily offended (John 6:66). Third, there was the insignificant handful who "received Him" (John 1:12) into their hearts and lives; received Him as their Lord and Savior.

The same three classes are clearly discernible (to anointed eyes) in the world today. First, there are the vast multitudes who make no profession at all, who see nothing in Christ that they should desire Him; people who are deaf to every appeal, and who make little attempt to conceal their hatred of the Lord Jesus. Second, there is that large company who are attracted by Christ in a natural way. So far from being openly antagonistic to Him and His cause, they are found among His followers. Having been taught much of the Truth, they "believe in Christ" just as children reared by conscientious Mohammedans believe firmly and devoutedly in Mohammed. Having received much of instruction concerning the virtues of Christ's precious blood, they trust in its merits to deliver them from the wrath to come; and yet there is nothing in their daily lives to show that they are new creatures in Christ Jesus! Third, there are the "few" (Matt, 7:13, 14) who deny themselves, take up the cross daily, and follow a despised and rejected Christ in the path of loving and unreserved obedience unto God.

Yes, there is a faith in Christ which saves, but there is a faith in Christ which does not save. From this statement probably few will dissent, yet many will be inclined to weaken it by saying that the faith in Christ which does not save is merely a historical faith, or where there is a believing about Christ instead of a believing in Him. Not so. That there are those who mistake a historical faith about Christ for a saving faith in Christ we do not deny; but what we would here emphasize is the solemn fact that there are also some who have more than a historical faith, more than a mere head-knowledge about Him, who yet have a faith which comes short of being a quickening and saving one. Not only are there some with this non-saving faith, but today there are vast numbers of such all around us. They are people who furnish the antitypes of those to which we called attention in the last article: who are represented and illustrated in Old Testament times by those who believed in, rest upon, leaned upon, relied upon the Lord, but who were, nevertheless, unsaved souls.

[From Pink, Practical Christianity, re-published by Sovereign Grace Publishers, Inc., Lafayette, IN, in 2001: a collection of articles gathered into a book.]

Copyright Ruth Davis, 2007. Published by Baruch House publishing. this reflection may be distributed electronically or in print provided it is kept whole and intact and this notice is included. Excerpts of up to 200 words are permitted for commentary. Available in bound booklet format through the office at Baruch House, contact office@truetohisways.com

¹ Contrast this with counterfeit vineyards. In occult thinking, a spiritual place is where “spirit” or “energy” is manifested. Occultists consider a situation to be spiritual where visions occur, or great emotion. None of this is godly. Only where His words go forth can we find the spirit and the life of God.

²The proclamation of Jesus is the power of God unto the salvation of souls in these last days, for it is by believing in Him—that is, recognizing that He is the answer, the way, the truth and the life—that one is born into saving faith. Jesus must be preached. In Him the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith to men and women who hunger for truth and righteousness.

³ In other places in Scripture we hear the heart of God as He cries out for the Israelites as if to an unfaithful wife: one to whom He has given His heart, but who has betrayed Him. We also read of divine promises to the Israelites apparently not conditional upon obedience to the Torah. The relationship of God with His peoples is deep and many layered. This reflection is in no way intended as a complete exposition about God’s relationship with the Israelites (about which I do not pretend to have full light), or with any one. I speak only what understanding I believe the Lord has given me thus far.

⁴ And to welcome a true prophet brings blessing. For one who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet—that is, recognizing him as one bringing God’s truth—receives a prophet’s reward (Matthew 10:41). The converse is also true. One who rejects a prophet of God receives in himself the reward of his error: this we see in what happened to the tenant vinedressers.

⁵For clear teaching on spiritual practices that bring plagues, curses and death, order a copy of the book featured on this Website – True to His Ways: Purity & Safety in Christian Spiritual Practice. The teaching is as important now as it was in Moses’ time.

⁶A man or woman’s own righteousness is his or her religion, although they may prefer not to call it such. A common, modern form of human righteousness is to assert that one is “spiritual” but not “religious”. This is a demonic semantic, usually a covert form of rebellion against God’s law—against His absolute moral code that mortal man regards as burdensome, binding, ‘legalistic’ and ‘religious’.

⁷ Not only this parable, but history all through the ages shows faithless vinedressers are dangerous to God’s servants. The Pharisees, who considered themselves children of Abraham and keeper of the Holy Scriptures, killed the Son and many of His servants and disciples. Roman Catholics, who view the Pope as the infallible ‘Vicar of Christ’ and keeper of the Holy Scriptures, have also killed many true servants and disciples. What might the future hold?

^[8] Herbert Lockyer, All the Parables of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1963), 226.

^[9] Scorned and ridiculed - Psalm 22:7,8, fulfilled in Matthew 27:39-43, Luke 23:35. His hands and feet pierced - Psalm 22:16, fulfilled in John 20:25,27; Acts 2:23. Some would gamble for His clothes - Psalm 22:18, fulfilled in Matthew 27:35,36. God would forsake Him in His agony – Psalm 22:1, fulfilled in Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34.

^[10] The destruction of Jerusalem is graphically portrayed in a work of historical fiction by G. A. Henty (1832-1902) called For the Temple, now published by Preston Speed Publications, Mill Hall, PENN.

^[11] Arthur Pink, The Saint’s Perseverance, 2001, Sovereign Grace Publishers, Inc., Lafayette, IN, pp. 27-28. Mr. Pink died in 1952.

^[12] A good book exposing The Message (and also, mainly, the serious problems with Rick Warren’s teaching) is Deceived on Purpose by Warren Smith, available through Lighthouse Trails Publishing.

^[13]This is proven beyond any argument in the book, True to His Ways.

^[14] I am not unaware of the irony of this observation in the context of popular teachings, nor the real difficulty in accepting it. The Church – that is, the group of ecclesiastical organizations that go by the name – can be an unconscious idol, too easily confused with the ecclesia. The distinction between the visible and invisible church only helps a little because it fails to draw the line in the right place. For a helpful, if caustic, explanation of this poorly-understood topic, read The Truth Which Sets Free by Peter Dunstan, www.destiner.com. Not an easy read, but perhaps worthwhile for some.

^[15] Dear reader, do not make the mistake of thinking this verse applies to the Jews only.

^[16] Doctrine is important. Occultism is serious sin. But to melt a sinner’s heart the Lord can use mercy with only a little truth better than much truth with condemnation. Truth without love is “an empty gong”.

^[17] This information from The People of the Way date of 1^st publication uncertain, written anonymously “by a saint to the saints” but author believed to be Arthur W. Pink: 1961 Bible Truth Depot, Swengel, Penn; out of print and difficult to obtain. This section of the reflection is inspired mainly by this book and I give grateful credit accordingly. Drawing from history and his own observations as a pastor for many years within organized Christianity, Pink shows how Churches tend inevitably to apostasy. With daunting intelligence and insight he reveals the antichrist potential of the world-wide web of apostate Churchianity that proclaims itself the “body of Christ on Earth”: food for thought.

^[18]From The People of the Way, pp145, 144.

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