Tuesday - the Day of Confrontation

I’d like you to take a look at the palm of your hand this morning—what do you see? Well, depending upon the kind of work you do, you might see some calluses on that hand. How did the calluses get there?

Calluses are formed wherever there is a constant irritation or rubbing. A mechanic gets calluses from twisting wrenches and screwdrivers all day long. A guitar player gets calluses on his fingertips from the guitar strings.

Calluses are a defense mechanism of the body. A callus usually starts out as a blister—and it can be painful and tender at that stage. But gradually, that blister will harden into an armored shell of tough, dead skin—a callus.

I’d like to talk to you today about the danger of getting calluses on your heart. When you rub up against spiritual truth, one of two things can happen. Either that truth will penetrate your heart, and change your life; or you will gradually develop a resistance to it, and form a callus on your heart.

Three days before he went to the cross, Jesus had a head-on collision with a posse of powerful people who had calluses on their hearts. Let’s look at what happened and see what we can learn for our lives today.

The passage in question is found in Matthew 21, on page 978 of the pew Bible. It’s Tuesday of the week that changed history, and Jesus is going to experience the most draining, difficult, and discouraging day of his ministry up to that point.

On Palm Sunday, he had entered Jerusalem in triumph. On Monday, he had cleansed the Temple and cursed the fig tree. On Tuesday, he was going to run smack into the religious leaders, who were still smarting over how he had knocked the props out from under their money-making racket in the Temple the day before. That’s why I’ve called Tuesday the Day of Confrontation. Let’s pick up the story in verse 23…

Matthew 21:23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

Now let’s stop here for a moment. Jesus was going to encounter three specific groups of people on this Terrible Tuesday. Each of these groups had their own ax to grind; their own political agenda; and their own theological ideas. You might want to think of them as political parties—or even religious denominations.

First there were the Pharisees. They were the party who represented what most religious Jews believed in the first century A.D. The Pharisees were commoners—they were not aristocrats. But through diligent study and academic discipline, the Pharisees had become experts in the Jewish law. Their greatest rabbis—Hillel, Shimei, and Gamaliel—were like folk heroes. These were the men who contributed to the teaching of the Talmud, which is still studied in Judaism today. The Pharisees enjoyed the respect and the support of most Jewish people.

Then there were the Sadducees. They were the aristocrats. They controlled the wealth of Judea, and they also controlled the priesthood. Most of your chief priests were Sadducees. That gave them a good deal of political power, and that, in turn, made it imperative for them to get along with the Romans. But their cozy relationship with the occupying army did not make the Sadducees especially popular with the common folk.

Neither did their religious views. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees didn’t believe in miracles, they didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were cool intellectuals. Although they controlled the priesthood, and the Temple, religion for them was a dead thing—useful only to be exploited for power and social prestige—a lot like the well-heeled country-club church goers of today.

Then there was a third group called the Herodians, who were not a religious group as much as they were a political party. They were the backers of the Herod family, who ruled parts of Judea as puppets of the Romans. They show up in Matthew 22:16.

So you had all these groups running around in 1st century Judea. When the Bible talks about the chief priests, it is referring to the Sadducees. When it talks about the elders of the people, it is referring mainly to the Pharisees.

And the interesting thing is that all of these groups, in spite of their diverse religious and political views, seemed to be able to agree on one thing. They were all opposed to Jesus. Because Jesus didn’t belong to any of them and what he was teaching, and what he was doing was threatening to all of them.

So on Tuesday, they confronted him with a challenge to his authority. “Where do you get the right to do these things? Where did you get the authority to teach like this? Where are your credentials? What school did you graduate from? Let’s see your diploma.” Questions of authority.

And sooner or later, when you think about having a relationship with Jesus, you’re going to have to deal with that question too. Because Jesus makes demands on you, and asks you to ultimately turn over control of your life to him. What gives him the authority to do that?

I’ll tell you what gives him the authority—He’s the Son of God. That’s what gives him the authority. But the chief priests and the elders didn’t believe that for a minute—and maybe you don’t either. So they challenged his authority.

Now look at how Jesus responds. He responds by telling them three parables—three common, everyday stories that had a spiritual hook in them. He told them about two sons, a gang of rebellious grape-growers, and a wedding banquet. Let’s look at these stories.

The Parable of the Two Sons Matt. 21:28–32

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ’ I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

A parable is an imaginary story with a real meaning. And in the parable, each character, each detail represents something that is real. In this parable, God is the father, and the two sons represent two kinds of people in Israel: the self-righteous religious people, and the “sinners”— the tax collectors and prostitutes—the “low-life”.

The religious people made like they were going to obey, but they didn’t obey. And the sinners, although at first they didn’t obey, ended up obeying. This is how it was in Israel.

When John the Baptist came from God as the forerunner of the Messiah, the religious people showed great interest in his work, but they would not repent and humble themselves and be baptized. The sinners—the tax collectors, and prostitutes—however, confessed their sins and obeyed John’s words and were baptized.

The leaders committed two sins. They would not believe John’s message, and they would not repent of their sins. They felt that they had no need to repent. But when they saw what repentance did for the publicans and sinners, they should have been convinced that John’s message was true and salvation was real. But they hardened their hearts and rejected the message God gave them.

Their rejection of John was really a rejection of their heavenly Father who had sent him. But God is gracious, and instead of sending judgment, He sent his Son. That is the subject of the next parable.

The Parable of the Tenants Matthew 21:33–46

Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey.

When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.

Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ”’ The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

In this parable, Jesus reminds the Jewish leaders of God’s goodness to them as a nation. He delivered them from Egypt and planted them in a rich land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, he put them in a vineyard. He gave them material and spiritual blessings and asked only that they bear fruit for His glory.

From time to time, God sent servants—His prophets—to Israel to receive the fruit. But the people mistreated the servants and even killed some of them. What should the landowner do? He could have sent his army to destroy those wicked tenants. But instead, he sent his own son to them. This son in the parable, of course, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

But instead of receiving the son, the wicked tenants cast him out of the vineyard and kill him. Now the religious leaders who were listening to this parable were caught up in the drama of it. And they didn’t realize when they responded as they did in verse 41 that they were passing sentence on themselves.

Jesus went on to quote from Psalm 118—the same Psalm that the crowd on Palm Sunday had shouted when they welcomed Jesus into the city. And Jesus showed that He was that Son and the religious leaders were the wicked tenant farmers. They were the builders who rejected the cornerstone.

And the consequences for Israel would be tragic. The kingdom of God would be taken away from Israel and given to another nation—the church of Jesus Christ.

The religious leaders of Israel had rejected the Father when they rejected John the Baptist. They rejected the Son when they rejected Jesus. But in spite of all that, God gives them one more chance. And that is what the last parable is about…

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet Matt. 22:1–14

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.

The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Here we see the Father and the Son, and the Son is alive, in spite of what the tenant farmers did to him. And the Son has a bride, because there is going to be a wedding banquet.

What we are looking at here in this parable is the time after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the time of the church—the Bride of Christ. And the Father is still inviting the people of Israel to come to the wedding banquet, in spite of what they did to his Son.

When you study the book of Acts, in the first seven chapters, you discover that the message of the Gospel—the invitation to enter the kingdom of God—is given almost exclusively to the Jewish people. It is only afterward that the invitation is given to the Gentiles.

How did the religious leaders respond to this invitation? They rejected it again. They persecuted the church. The same leaders who had stood by and allowed Herod to kill John the Baptist; the same leaders who had demanded that Pilate crucify Jesus; were the same leaders who themselves picked up stones and stoned Stephen.

How did the king in the parable respond to their rejection of his invitation? He sent an army to destroy them and their city, it says in verse 7. Do you know what happened in the year 70 A.D.? The Roman army came and destroyed Jerusalem. The city was burned to the ground.

When the religious leaders rejected John the Baptist, they were really rejecting the Father. But God forgave them, and gave them more light. When they rejected Jesus Christ, they were rejecting the Son. But Jesus forgave them—he said on the cross “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”

But when they rejected the Gospel message about the risen Lord, they were rejecting the Holy Spirit. Stephen, in his last words said “You are resisting the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). And when you resist the Holy Spirit, there can be no forgiveness, for you are turning your back on the message of salvation—the only thing that can save you.

After the stoning of Stephen, in Acts 7, the Gospel message begins to go to the Gentiles. First to the Samaritans in Acts 8, then to the Ethiopian eunuch at the end of that chapter. Then in Acts 9, God, in his grace takes one of those tough, cynical religious leaders—a man named Saul—and begins to shape him into an apostle to the Gentiles. And in Acts 10, the Gospel reaches the Gentiles, as a Roman centurion named Cornelius and his household are saved.

What is the message of Tuesday—the Day of Confrontation? Simply that God has invted you to be a part of his kingdom. His passion is for you and me. He keeps looking for us, sending for us, trying to connect with us, just as he did with the religious leaders in Israel. He is like a father or a mother looking for a lost child.

Have you ever lost one of your children? I have, briefly. And it is not a good feeling. All other thoughts and priorities are erased by the urgency of finding that lost child. And that is how God feels about people who are still outside of his kingdom.

There is a famous painting by an artist named Holman Hunt. It is a picture of Jesus standing at a door and knocking. The picture represents Revelation 3:20, which says “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

What many people do not realize about that painting is that the artist has deliberately left out an important detail. There is no handle on the outside of that door, where Jesus stands knocking. The only handle is on the inside.

Jesus cannot and will not force his way into your life. He waits for you to open the door. Have you opened the door of your life to the Savior?

Or have you rejected his invitation? Is there scar tissue forming on your heart—a kind of tough hardness, like a callus that keeps you from responding to him?

You know, there are a lot of things in life that we cannot choose. We cannot choose the weather. We can’t control the economy. We can’t choose whether we are born with blue eyes or a big nose or lots of hair. We can’t even choose how people respond to us. But we can choose where we’ll spend eternity.

But the longer you know this and choose not to choose, the more scar tissue forms on your heart. The thicker the callus gets. The spiritual truth of the Gospel can be like the measles. If you are exposed to it for long enough, you can develop a resistance to it.

If you are around spiritual truth for long enough without actually “catching it” and letting it penetrate your life, you can turn out to be like those religious leaders Jesus met on Terrible Tuesday.

That’s why it’s dangerous to be around Christianity without actually having your own personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

At the end of that last parable, Jesus included a strange detail about a man who was discovered to be at the wedding banquet without the proper clothes on. You see, in those days, a wealthy host of a wedding banquet not only provided the food, he provided the clothes as well—fine garments for everyone to wear—so that nobody, not even the poorest guest, would be embarrassed.

But here was a man at the banquet who had not put on the clothing provided by the host. Evidently, he thought that his own clothing was good enough. He felt that he didn’t need the proper wedding garments.

Do you see the symbolism? When we respond to the invitation to God’s banquet, we must accept the robe of righteousness that God gives us. We can’t go into the kingdom of God wearing our own righteousness. All our righteousness is like filthy rags in God’s sight. He has prepared for us a clean garment—the righteousness of Christ.

In Zechariah chapter 3, we read that Joshua, the high priest, was dressed in filthy robes as he stood before the angel of the Lord. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”

I’m going to ask you to bow in prayer with me. And as you think about what you’ve heard here this morning, I’m going to ask you to take stock of your relationship with God.

It may be that you have attended church for many years. You’ve been around the truth for along time, but you’ve never really let the truth penetrate your life. You’re still trying to make yourself look presentable to God in the old rags of your self-righteousness. And you realize today that it isn’t good enough.

God is calling you today. His patience hasn’t run out. He’s calling you one more time. Giving you another chance to respond to his invitation—to open the door. Will you do it?

If you want to receive Jesus Christ, I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat (as we sing our closing hymn) and come up to the front and join me here. And I will help you to make sure of where you stand with the Savior.

This is your opportunity. Don’t let it slip by.