Sermon on Matthew 21:33
Matthew 21:33,ff.
Noah planted a vineyard, and when the grapes came, he made wine. He enjoyed the fruit too much and got drunk. And during that time his son Ham did a despicable thing, and his son Canaan was cursed because of it. This isn’t simply a lesson about drunkenness. It is a lesson about fruits, and to whom they belong.
Noah wanted to enjoy the fruits of his labor, but his own son mocked him for it. Everyone argues about the fruits of labor. But few consider that all the fruits belong to God. Everything belongs to God.
Jesus tells a parable about the people of Israel. God did not choose Israel because they were great among the nations of the earth. They were among the smallest and most despised when He chose them. They were slaves when He freed them. He made a promise. The promise was that He would give them a Savior from sin, so that they would not be working only for themselves for a little while on earth, but for God, who would give them more than their hands could work for.
God brought Israel into Canaan, the land that Ham’s son had occupied. He gave drove out the Canaanites before them, and they found vineyards and orchards they had not planted, cisterns they had not dug, cities they had not built. They didn’t do anything to give themselves what they possessed.
But again and again they acted as if they had gotten what they had by their own efforts, ingenuity, intelligence, virtue, righteousness, and hard work. And that is when God let Canaan come back and oppress them again, as well as other nations. He sent judges and prophets again and again to ask them for the fruit that He had provided them. God asked them through His prophets to recognize that what they had was not theirs, and that they needed from Him more than the fruit they were enjoying for a little while here on earth.
But it happened as Jesus described it, “And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned the other. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them.”
He sent for the fruit. They wanted to keep the fruit. They killed those who asked for the fruit for the owner of the vineyard.
Finally the landowner sent his own son, saying, They will respect my son.”
But they said, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.”
The story seems ridiculous. What owner of a vineyard wouldn’t send and destroy the workers after the first prophet was sent? But he keeps sending them, until finally he gives his own son, and the same thing happens.
This is the history of the children of Israel. Finally they cried out, “His blood be on us and our children.” As Ben Shapiro confesses, Jesus was just a rebel against Roman authority. The Jews now claim the Old Testament as their own. They change A.D. in the year of our Lord to C.E. the common era. They will never give any fruit to Jesus. They are bound by the same unbelief that murdered the prophets and the Son of God Himself. They claim to be the people of God just like Ham claimed to be able to step into his father’s bed and start his own people because his father was drunk. The Jews claim Scriptures they do not understand.
And the reason is because they think that the fruit belongs to them. Their righteousness, their goodness, their intellect, their wealth, their talents and powers, are all given to them by God, but they will not yield it up to the Son of God when He comes to claim it. And so they are cursed like Canaan, and will be until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, as Paul says in Romans.
And the same thing will happen to the Japhethites who helped Shem cover their father Noah’s nakedness. Look at white people bragging about what white people have done! They want the fruit! Look at the glories of Western Civilization! But how much of this glory is given to the preachers who preach that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that we are unprofitable servants, that we have nothing that we did not receive, and if we received it, why do we boast as if we did not receive it?
Woe to Europe, already being overtaken by Hamites, unable to hold on to all her fruits of beauty, art, architecture, learning, logic, philosophy, because she has refused to give the fruit to God who grows every good thing and demands it from us! Woe to America, burdened so heavily down by her pride in her own accomplishments that she can’t maintain her own vineyards of learning, virtue, goodness, art, beauty, and work ethic!
Woe to all those who, when the preachers come to demand the fruit that belongs to God, shun them, persecute them, beat them, silence them, push them out of their town and cities, and finally kill them.
Woe to us when we think that the good God does in our life belongs to us to enjoy as we see fit.
But blessed is the sinner who sees that he has nothing good in his flesh, as Paul says, that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, as James says, that apart from Christ I can do nothing, as Jesus teaches me to confess – blessed are the poor in spirit, because any fruit they see coming from their spirits they know belongs to God.
Blessed are those who are rich towards God, who give it all to Him who owns it all, and have at the end nothing but a broken and contrite spirit, a sigh at the end of their life which says, “I claim nothing of my own. I will not meet death with anything but the fruit of the tree of life, the forgiveness bleeding and flowing from the body of my Lord Jesus on the cross.”
Blesses are those who lose their own lives for Christ’s and for the Gospel’s sake, because they have more than Bezos and Solomon and Midas and all the riches of the world combined. Blessed are you when you look at your life and see that it all belongs to God, and that this does not make you any poorer, but in fact it makes you rich, because it is to the poor that Jesus gives Himself and all He has. He forgives you all your debt. He gives you righteousness greater than the self-righteous Jews and Japhethites. He gives you righteousness that wards off hell, that broke through the grave with Jesus and now shines before the Father at His right hand, and is clothing you even now by grace, by free grace, by undeserved love that you receive without doing anything, but by believing the prophet who comes to you and says, “Give me what belongs to God.” And Jesus says to you tonight, “Give me what belongs to the God in whose vineyard you work.”
And you give it all. It all belongs to Him because you belong to Him. He belongs to you. What freedom there is not trying to horde some little righteousness and goodness for yourself, but giving all that you are, confessing all you’ve failed to do, and believing that God still wants you to trust in Him, to work for Him, to suffer for Him, and when you die, to live with Him forever. What blessing is this!
God did not cover the nakedness of His Son when He died on the cross. It is an open shame to the whole world. The world laughs and mocks it as Ham did his father’s nakedness. But the Father does not laugh. He says, “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.” So when you are naked of righteousness, when your sins have harmed you and left you to be mocked by God’s Law, then Jesus, the Law-fulfiller, steps in between you and the accusations of your conscience, and He says, I will cover Him with My own righteousness. Blessed is this naked, poor, blind, beggar of a sinner who owns nothing in this world but Me. Blessed is he because he has the fruit of the cross, the fruit of God’s love, the taste that the Lord is good and better and sweeter than any wine the earth can offer. Blesses is the sinner who enjoys the fruit of My labor, because such a sinner has become a Christian, righteous and holy, and all his labor is not in vain. It is love that covers our neighbor’s sins, just as it covers his owns. It is fruit that will last when the world’s righteousness has been drained and found worthless. But this fruit will taste sweet forever. It is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.