So we're continuing in our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew, and this morning we are in Matthew chapter 21. We've been there for a little bit now, and at this point we should be concluding this chapter. You should find it on page 982 of your Pew Bibles. We'll be using verses 33 to 44 as our text for this morning. And as always, if you're able, would you stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired word. Jesus says, hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard. and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them saying, they will respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance. And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When, therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons. Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, They feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet. This is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So in recent weeks, we've seen Jesus present himself according to scripture to God's people here in Israel as their divine and divinely appointed king and Messiah. and even has presented himself to them as the Lord of his temple who has come suddenly to it to see its corruption and to symbolically cleanse it of that corruption. At his entry into the city and even on the next day, we heard and saw many people, even children, praising him as the son of David, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna. Now, the religious leaders, though, have also seen these acts of authority by Jesus. They, on the other hand, are not praising him. They are, in fact, very displeased by what they have seen. They've questioned now him directly, asking him where his authority is from and who gave it to him. And in response to that question, those questions, Jesus told them a parable we looked at last week about a father who commanded his two sons to go and work in his vineyard. And the one said, I go father and never went. And the other said, no, I will not go. But eventually changed his mind and went and did what his father required of him. Through that parable, Jesus rebuked these leaders for failing to believe that John the Baptist's authority, and therefore his own, was actually from God. And he told them that even the tax collectors and the prostitutes were entering into the kingdom of God instead of them. because of their persistent disbelief, because they refused to change their minds, even when they saw, according to their minds, the worst of sinners, believing John's authority from God and listening to him and following. So when we come to this parable in our text today, we, first of all, can understand that this same parable appears in the same form, essentially, somewhat different, but nothing major in these, between Mark and Luke as well. And it would seem from what we see from Matthew that as soon as Jesus finished that previous parable that he seems to have just gone right into this next one. You see how he says, here, another parable. Now the basic story at the beginning of this parable was actually a very common one in that day in terms of how to properly set up a vineyard in order for it to be productive and useful. It was also quite common for a landowner in that day and time and that place to set up a vineyard in this way and to lease it out to someone else while he went back to live in a different place and depended on these men to run the vineyard, to care for it, to harvest the crop, and then to return a portion of that to him. There would have been an agreed upon contract between the landowner and the tenants that so much a percentage of the fruit would belong to the landowner and then the rest would belong to the tenants to derive their living from. In fact, it's entirely possible, as Jesus is telling this parable to these religious leaders in Jerusalem, that some of these men themselves have a very similar arrangement with a vineyard somewhere away from Jerusalem and are benefiting from it in the same way. In other words, everyone would recognize the scenario that Jesus is describing here. It is not something that would be unusual and unfamiliar to them. But this scenario would also be, should also be very familiar, especially to these religious leaders, because in the prophet Isaiah, in chapter 5, in verses 1 through 7, God uses the same basic story that Jesus gives in verse 33. And he has Isaiah speaking, writing, saying this as a poem, a song to God about how God carefully established the nation people of Israel with the intent that they would bear fruit for him. And he refers to them as his vineyard. And of course, God obviously does reside in another country in heaven. It's also interesting if you look at the two passages side by side, you see very close similarity between them. As God sets up his vineyard, he tells us in Isaiah that he planted the vines, that he set up a tower in the midst of it, that he dug out a wine press in it. He doesn't say initially that he actually built a fence or a hedge or a wall around it, but as you move to verse seven, he promises that in his judgment on them for not bearing good fruit, that he is going to tear down the wall or hedge or fence that he put around it and allow it to be destroyed. So you see that these two passages are very similar, and people's hearts and minds, especially these leaders who were experts in the Word of God, should have immediately understood Jesus is talking about his people and about God. Now, it's true that the final point of these two stories are somewhat different. We'll talk maybe about that a little bit later. But here now in his parable, Jesus continues to tell this story of God's care for Israel, the vineyard. It would normally take, as I understand it, three to four years for a newly planted vineyard to begin to produce the fruit that you would expect from it, anticipate from it. God, the owner though, is patient. But when it is time for that fruit to be forthcoming, and he finds that it isn't, he sends his servants to go and seek after the fruit that should be there. Now, in the theological underpinning of this story, in the biblical underpinning of it, we understand that the servants God is sending to Israel the vineyard to seek after the fruit that he desires are the prophets. whom God has sent time after time to his people, calling them to produce the fruit of righteousness and faithfulness and obedience to him that he requires. And yet these prophets, as they've gone to the people, have been abused, neglected, ignored, beaten, and yes, even stoned. Zechariah, the son of, I think it's Berekiah, in the day of Joash, is literally stoned at the order of the king, in the court of the temple for daring to call the people to repent of their sin and to follow after God. Tradition even tells us that Jeremiah the prophet may well have been stoned. The point is that God sends these servants in order to seek after the fruit that belongs to him. Now in Isaiah's song in chapter 5 in verse 7, God tells us that the vineyard is the house of Israel and that the vines are the men, the people of Judah. But God's complaint against them is that I did everything that I should have done to set up this vineyard to produce good fruit, and despite all of my best efforts, all they're producing are wild grapes. Worthless things. Now, the fact that these tenants of the vineyard As Jesus tells this story, when the servants come, do nothing but abuse, beat, and even kill the servants, that in itself should have immediately brought down judgment and condemnation upon these tenants. This is wicked, unacceptable behavior, obviously. Yet this is where the parable goes outside of what would have been ordinary and familiar to the people of that day. They would have expected the owner to deal with these men immediately. And yet the owner Jesus is talking about, God, is very patient, is very gracious, in fact. He sends even more servants. Trying to correct the problem between the tenants and himself and still receive the fruit that he is to receive. And yet as he sends the greater number of servants to them, the tenants do the very same things to them. Abusing, killing, stoning. This is outrageous behavior on the part of these men. Who do they think they are? And in fact, if you want to put it in terms of the questions that have been being asked lately in these passages, where do they think they get their authority from to act in this way against the wishes of the owner of the vineyard? Because everything that they are doing is completely in violation of the agreement that they had with the master of the house. Everything. Who do they think they are? And where do they think they get their authority? Does that sound like the questions they just finished asking Jesus? And yet, even after abusing and killing these other servants of the owner, the master of God, God's patience and his grace is still not exhausted. This is the amazing part of the story. Even seeing what has happened to all of his other servants so far, the owner still has one more servant that he can send. to seek to reestablish the right relationship between the tenants and himself and to receive the fruit that belongs to him. Although this last servant is in fact his own son. As Jesus tells the parable through Luke's retelling of it, in Luke chapter 20 verse 13, the owner, God, in fact, says, this is my beloved son. We've heard that phrase before as God has uttered it at Jesus' baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration, his beloved son. Surely these men will, should respect the son of the owner. Surely when they see him, they will understand that he is the literal, physical representation of his father, the owner, and that he comes actually with the full authority of his father. In fact, in a sense, as they see him, they should realize that they are, in a sense, looking at the father, the owner himself. and they should deal with him according to that understanding. And yet that isn't what happens. Instead, when the tenants see the son, they see something entirely different. They don't see an authority they have to submit to. They don't see a reflection of the owner who they have agreed to serve and satisfy. They see an opportunity. An opportunity. If we kill the son, this vineyard and all of its fruit is his inheritance. If we kill him, we can keep it for ourselves. And so instead of respecting him, they throw him out of the vineyard and they kill him. And it's exactly at that point in the story that Jesus now asks a question that amazingly these tenants have never seemed to consider in everything that they've been doing. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? You see, obviously at some point the owner is not just going to say, oh well, I guess a bad investment, I guess we'll write that one off for tax purposes. The owner eventually is going to come to deal with this situation, and they seem to have not considered that at all. We'll kill his son and keep the whole thing. But Jesus asked when he comes, what is he going to do? Now, these religious leaders, because remember, this is connected to that last passage we looked at last week. Jesus is still speaking to the religious leaders, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders in the temple there with a crowd that has been listening to his teaching, listening on. He's still speaking to them and he's asking them this question. And as we look at this story, especially based on those last two verses of the chapter, we have to wonder at this point, as he asked them the question, do they realize even now at this moment that Jesus is speaking against them, that he's speaking about them? Or is that realization only going to come after his fuller response to their answer in verses 42 to 44? We don't know for sure, but as happened When Jesus asked them which of the sons obeyed their father, there's only one answer they can give here. To give any other answer would make them look not only foolish, but unjust and wicked. And so they give the answer that we find in verse 41. They said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death. Another way to translate that is that he will destroy them badly. He will put them to a miserable death and he will let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season. It's interesting that phrase, they will give him the fruits in their season. That is a familiar phrase, actually, if you are familiar with the Psalms. Psalm 1, the very opening Psalm of the whole Psalter, the little brief Psalm in which the righteous are contrasted against the wicked and their way and their end is contrasted with the way and end of the wicked. And in verse 3, we're told that the righteous is like a tree planted by streams of water. which will always produce its fruit in its season. And the fruit, obviously, for the righteous man is righteousness, obedience to God, living according to God's will and way. On the other hand, it is the wicked whose way is going to perish, who are going to be like chaff blown away by the wind. It's interesting that they use that phrase. We may talk about that a little bit later as well. But notice how Jesus responds to them in verse 42. He gives them this quotation, which actually comes from Psalm 118, verses 22 and 23. He says to them, have you never read in the scriptures? And again, we've heard him ask that question a few times now, right? You're supposed to be the experts in the law and in the word of God. Can you not see what is happening here right in front of your eyes through your own actions? Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? And that this was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. We just wonder at it. We're amazed by it. See, Jesus is saying to them, can't you see from scripture what's happening here? You are the builders. And you are rejecting me as a stone, the stone, the cornerstone for your building. And you think you're doing this all on your own, but you need to understand this is the scripture, Psalm 118, 22 and 23. God foretold that this was going to happen. By the way, remember Psalm 118 is the very same psalm that the people used as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem to give him hosannas and to call him the son of David, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, that the children used to say hosanna, son of David. It is, in fact, the psalm that has been on the lips of many throughout the city in this week as they're working into the festival of the Passover. In other words, it's a very commonly heard psalm. It should have been readily on the minds of these leaders. They should have been thinking about it and meditating on it, and here is the stone right in front of them, and they're in the process of rejecting him, and they can't even see it. But in this, we see that Jesus is once again doing what has not been his normal procedure. Normally, when he tells a parable, it's not for the people out there to understand. He takes his disciples aside and explains it to them. But with the last parable, we saw him explain it to the Pharisees, the leaders in the crowd, and here again, we see him doing the very same thing. Now Archie Frantz in his commentary points out an interesting thing that Jesus would have most likely been speaking Aramaic as he's talking to these leaders in the temple, and that in Aramaic, the word for son sounds almost exactly the same as the word for stone. So as Jesus has been telling a parable about the son who is going to be rejected, thrown out, and killed, and now quotes scripture which talks about the stone that is going to be rejected, the people would have been hearing, did he just say son or stone? Is it the sun or is it the stone? And Jesus' whole point is, yes, it's both. I am both the sun who comes to the vineyard and is cast out and will be killed, and I am also the stone that the builders are rejecting that has and will become the chief cornerstone, the work of God that is amazing to his people. He's saying to them, you understand from this passage of scripture, what's happening here is God's plan. Even your rejection of me is God's plan, and yet that does not give you cover for what you're doing. You are fully responsible for the wickedness of your behavior in rejecting me. And that's why he then goes on to say, therefore, because of that, as a result of that being true, I have something more to tell you. Now, at this point, I want to go back to Isaiah 5 again. Understand that in Isaiah 5, I just told you that God tells us that the vineyard in that passage is representing the nation, the people of Israel, a covenant nation in the Old Testament and up to this time. But notice that as Jesus tells his parable about the vineyard and the owner and the care and the fruit, is not talking necessarily about the covenant Old Testament nation of Israel. He says that this is now, in fact, the kingdom of God. Notice what he says to them that, therefore, As a result of this passage, I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people. It could also be a nation. By the way, that's singular. When you see nations and peoples, that usually points to the Gentiles. That's not what this is. This is a singular nation or people, and it is a people or nation that will produce the fruits that God requires. Notice it is still, like in Isaiah, about the fruit. In Isaiah 5, it's because they're producing no fruit, bad fruit. And here, God the owner is still not getting his fruit from the vineyard that Jesus is talking about as well. These leaders are in fact withholding the fruit from God by leading its people to produce no fruit, to produce no true righteousness before him. And so we find then in verse 44 that Jesus goes on to make two more allusions to the Old Testament regarding this stone that he has been representing himself actually as. The first one comes from Isaiah chapter 8 and verse 14. That's a passage where God is actually speaking to Isaiah the prophet. And he's telling Isaiah not to consider to be a conspiracy, the things that these people consider to be a conspiracy, but that he is to focus his heart on God and serve him with fear. And then in verse 14 and 15, God says about himself to Isaiah, and he, I, will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken. They shall be snared and taken. You see how Jesus in that first part of this second quotation is basically taking what God says about himself in Isaiah chapter 8, 14, and 15, and he is applying it to himself as the stone that these builders are rejecting, that it is going to cause people to stumble and to fall. We want to make sure we note I've just said it, but you may not have caught it. This is another case where Jesus takes an Old Testament statement by God about himself and applies it to himself with no hesitation. Jesus, again, there are people who often say, Jesus never claimed to be God. If you really believe that, you're not reading the scriptures at all. Jesus is here claiming to be God. But the point here is that I think the second part of this about being crushed if it falls on you, and in my mind at least, this seems to be a clear allusion to Daniel chapter 2. You know, I preached on this a few years ago or several years ago, and I know all of you remember all of this vividly in your minds, but Daniel chapter 2 is that passage where there's this dream about this great statue, this statue that is made of four different kinds of metal, gold, silver, bronze, iron, and even the iron in the feet is mixed with some clay. That statue, we're told, represents the great kingdoms of the earth. It's magnificent to look at. It's imposing. It's intimidating. And yet, in the middle of that dream, there is a stone that is cut without hands and comes down and strikes that statue in all of its greatness. And when it strikes it, the statue is crushed. It crumbles to powder and blows away like chaff in the wind. And that stone then begins to grow and becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth. A kingdom that will have no end. Clearly pointing to the kingdom of the Messiah, the kingdom of God, as it pushes aside all the kingdoms of the earth and becomes the only kingdom that remains. But notice when that stone falls on the statue, it's crushed. And Jesus says, and anyone on whom this stone falls will be crushed. He is the stone from Daniel 2. well. And I think we could look at this and understand that Jesus in a sense is pointing to the fact that these leaders, not just these ones standing before him, but even all those who came before them who walked unrighteously, they are building a kingdom. But they are not building the kingdom of God. They're building an earthly kingdom. Just like that statue that they thought was so imposing and so intimidating, they're building their own statue. And Jesus is saying that the stone is going to come and crush your kingdom as well as it would have crushed those in that passage and in that dream and prophecy. And so then we find verses 44 and 45, the chief priests and the Pharisees now, which likely would have been part of the scribes who were there, heard his parables. When they heard them, they perceived, they understood, they got it that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, and remember the other Gospels have already told us that in seeking to arrest him they want to kill him, they couldn't do it yet because they feared the crowds. Same crowd that's standing around them all at this moment who had been listening to Jesus' teaching. They feared the crowds because the crowds held Jesus to be a prophet just as they did John the Baptist. Now keep in mind that this whole situation that Jesus is dealing with here is the result of these leaders coming to him demanding that he tell them by what authority he's been doing what they consider to be outrageous things in their city, in their temple, in their nation. And it's important to understand that in this parable Jesus hasn't changed the subject at all. In fact, he is answering their question in a sense as directly as possible while at the same time challenging their authority. In this parable, he reminds them that God is the one who established Israel to be his covenant nation, to live in obedience to him, faithfulness to him, righteousness, He demands his portion of that fruit of righteousness from the nation of Israel, and it is supposed to be through its leaders that the people are led to give that to God. And instead, these leaders are leading the people away from him into some kind of a works righteousness that has nothing to do with the grace of God and faithfulness to him. It is the leaders of Israel over the years, and even, yes, the people of Israel over the years, who have been behaving outrageously toward God, not Jesus, in this situation. They have been defying God's authority. They have been thinking that the owner, that God is never going to come and set things right. They have been withholding from him the fruits that he deserves and commands. They have, in fact, ignored, abused, killed the prophets that he sent to them to call the people to that righteousness, to call the leaders to that righteousness. And now Jesus is telling them that they are about to take the beloved son of God, and they are about to put him out of the city and kill him. Understand that their killing Israel's killing, if you will, of God's Son is going to be Israel's ultimate and culminating sin of rebellion against God. They cannot and will not be allowed to get away with their rebellion against him anymore. They are in their false authority rejecting the son, and again, as France says in his commentary, their punishment will fit the crime. They will be destroyed badly when the owner comes, when God comes. And when is God going to come? Well, if you know your history, you know that in 70 AD, God sends the Romans to literally crush the city of Jerusalem, to destroy it, to not leave one stone of the temple standing upon another. The people are ravaged in all of that and the covenant nation of Israel from the Old Testament ceases to exist. The owner has comes and he will destroy them badly. Now, I told you earlier that Isaiah 5, 1 through 7 in this parable seem very similar, and yet they have a different ending. And they do, although I hope maybe because of what we've just been talking about, you can see that their ending is not entirely different. What God says in Isaiah chapter 5, 1 through 7 is that because this vineyard was set up by him so carefully and perfectly, with every intent of it producing good fruit, and they only produced wild fruit, he is going to absolutely destroy it. And he's talking, remember, the vineyard is Israel. Now Jesus' focus here has not been on the people taking care of the vineyard, or God's focus wasn't. Jesus' focus is on the tenants, not on the vineyard in a sense itself. And yet we have just seen Jesus affirm that Israel is going to be destroyed for their sinfulness, their rebellion against God. He's just affirmed that in what he's been saying. But here's a truth that I want you to take away from this today and understand. There's a lot of people get confused around these points, and Jesus is teaching something here we need to understand. God never destroys Israel. Do you understand that? God never destroys Israel. He says he will. And he destroys the nation of Israel actually a few different times throughout history, including 70 AD. But you understand that in every time God has acted in judgment on this unfaithful, godless nation, he has always preserved a remnant of those that he has kept faithful to him who are producing the fruits of righteousness that he requires. Remember him telling Elijah the prophet when he thought he was the last of the godly people in Israel, I alone stand here and God says, you gotta get away from this idea that you're like the only person left. I've got 7,000 other people who haven't bowed their knees to Baal. God always preserves a remnant. a faithful remnant of those who yield him the fruits of righteousness he requires. When Israel has been destroyed in the past and when it will, from their perspective, be destroyed in the future in 70 AD, that nation, that people will not be destroyed. The true Israel, the true people of God, the remnant, they are the kingdom of God. That's why Jesus doesn't say, I'm gonna take this away from you and I'm gonna create a kingdom of God. He tells them, I'm going to, God is going to take away the kingdom of God that you're already overseeing. He's going to take it from you and put it under the oversight of another nation or people who will produce the fruit that I require. Have you ever asked yourself what is that nation or people? Too many people look at this and they think, okay, what's happening here is that God is replacing the Jews with the Gentiles. The day of the Jew is gone, and now it's all about Gentiles. No! You're missing the point entirely. The kingdom of God still exists under Old Testament Israel, and it's going to be passed on under the oversight of another nation or people. Israel continues in the kingdom of God. The stone's rejection, the sun's rejection, the murder of Jesus Christ is something that will be overridden by God. In Psalm 118, the rejected stone, rejected by the builders, is vindicated as being a good stone, a true stone. The needed stone, by who? By God. God vindicates him as the righteous and essential cornerstone in his building in the kingdom of God. By the way, there are many who believe that Psalm 118 is a psalm that is about the vindication of Israel. That Israel has been despised and rejected and abused by the nations and that it is in this psalm that they are rejoicing over the fact that despite that, God has vindicated them by making them the place where his name is held up and where his name is to be proclaimed to the world. That may be, and it may not be, but at least we know this. Jesus brings up this passage about the stone for a purpose because the stone and the son are the same. And when the stone is rejected, when he is killed, he will be vindicated through his death and resurrection. God will vindicate him and will show him to be the true chosen precious cornerstone in the kingdom of God. So again, what is the nation that will inherit the kingdom of God, the people? Well, you can actually fast forward in the New Testament to Peter's first epistle, 1 Peter, in chapter 2 and verse 9. In that chapter, Peter is talking about exactly this, the stone and this passage from Psalm 118 and a couple of other places. And he ends up talking about the fact that all true believers in Christ, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, if they truly believe in him as God has sent him, that they are actually living stones that are being built on this chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ, in order to be the true and final temple where God will be perfectly, permanently, eternally worshiped and glorified. Listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter 2 verse 9 as he talks about those who truly believe in Christ. He says that they are a chosen race. Sound like a people? A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, he says. A holy nation, a people for God's own possession. Now you have to understand that those separate titles he brings up in that verse are all Old Testament designations for the covenant nation of Israel. God hasn't done away with his people. The covenant nation of Israel as represented in the true remnant continues and now is added to the converts in the New Testament who are all now Israel, the chosen race. the holy nation, the people for God's own possession. That's us. The church is the nation that now has the oversight of the kingdom of God, which is one kingdom from the beginning of scripture to the end. And this church, the church, the true church comprised of Old Testament and New Testament faithful has the sun, the stone, as our Lord and as our King. Now it's interesting, again, I said this earlier, that these wicked rulers in their reply to Jesus' question at the end of the parable said the owner will let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season. I pointed out that connection to Psalm 1. I don't think these leaders were alluding to that, by the way. They clearly would have not made that connection because that would have indicated that they were the wicked, not the righteous, and I don't think they were going there at all. But remembering that Psalm 1, especially verse 3, is describing how the righteous man who has been chosen and redeemed by God will live according to God's righteous will while the wicked will be like chaff blown away by the wind and perish. That helps us understand something about what Jesus is teaching here. If we are truly members by grace alone of the church that now has oversight of the kingdom of God, this new nation of the kingdom of God, if we truly are those by grace, we must and we will present the fruit of righteousness to God in its season as it is due, which is all the time. We will produce righteous fruit. Now, we can't earn being in the kingdom of God by being righteous. Why is that? Because we can't be righteous and we aren't righteous. It's impossible for us to do that. But because only by God's grace we are brought into the kingdom of God, because he saves us and transforms us and changes us, he has also promised that by his word and spirit, he will ensure that we will continue to grow more and more into righteousness. He calls that sanctification. And he promises that the spirit who has begun a good work in you will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. One more connection to the Psalms as we close. The rejection and the killing of Jesus by the Jews that Jesus himself predicts in this parable is really, as I said, the ultimate sin of rebellion against God by his people. And in fact, it is the ultimate enactment of Psalm 2. If you're familiar with Psalm 2, when the nation, the rulers, rise up against the Lord and his anointed one, they want to cast them off and cast off their chains and free themselves from them. And yet God tells them, I have chosen my king and I have put him on my holy hill. You are my son, he says. Today I have begotten you. And God mocks their pitiful attempts at rebellion against him. But the connection is at the end. of Psalm 2 particularly. Psalm 2 verses 10 through 12, Jesus' parable here is a severe warning to the leaders and the people standing before him of what is to come if you persist in rebellion and disobedience to God. And that is exactly what you find at the end of Psalm 2. Here's what it says, condensed a little bit. Therefore, be wise, be warned, Don't reject and kill the son. Kiss the son, the psalm says. Why lest he be angry and you perish in the way. But then it finishes with the promise we cling to as God's people. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. And so the question we ask ourselves today after this denouncement, if you will, of the leadership and even the false nation of Israel, we don't focus on them, we focus on us, and we ask ourselves, will we? as the constituted new nation, will we yield to him the fruit of righteousness that he deserves and commands. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your goodness and grace to us in Christ. How we thank you for the promises that you make to us and also the severe warnings that you give to warn us and to call us away from our sinful tendencies and to call us into faithfulness to you. How we thank you for your spirit, working through your word to draw our hearts constantly back to you in spite of our sinful tendencies. And we pray that you would help us to never be like these wicked tenants who despise your authority and ignored and mistreated those who called us to righteousness and to faithfulness. And instead, we pray that you would give us hearts that would submit to your authority, to your kingship, and that you would help us by your grace to kiss the sun, so that we could be blessed by finding refuge in Him. We ask these things in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen.