Take Heed to This Very Serious Warning Part 2

James Kaddis: Take heed to a very serious warning next on Light on the Hill. I think this should be a warning to all of us. I think this should be something that is used by God to wake us up in a way that recognizes that when God is trying to speak to us, the responsibility that we have is to respond in humility and do the thing that He's asked us to do.
Intro Song: I have found the peace only comes from You. I have found the joy only comes from You. ‘Cause all I need is You.
Guest (Male): It's time for Light on the Hill online at LightontheHillRadio.com. Pastor James Kaddis, our Bible teacher, is presenting a study from Mark's Gospel. Today, we return to chapter 12, where Jesus begins speaking in parables. This one speaks volumes about how we study the Bible and apply it to our hearts. Here's Pastor James.
James Kaddis: What the parable is communicating here is really important, and the application to us is even more important. Okay, let's look at the order. He builds this vineyard. He makes this place that is not only acceptable for the benefit of the one who created it, but it is also acceptable for the ones who were called to work in it and be faithful in it. Let's draw a little parallel here and let's just simply say that God gave us this earth. He gave us this earth not only that He may be blessed by our blessing within it; He gave us this earth with the intent that we would be good stewards of all the responsibilities that came with it. Matter of fact, it's interesting, we talked about this on Saturday with the men. We talked about this spiritual principle in that when God deals with us, He generally likes to deal with us in abundance. This is not some health and wealth message. That's just ridiculous. But the idea that God communicates to us on a regular basis is that He gives us abundantly whatever we need to accomplish His call and His purpose. But there is a tremendous mistake that we can make in the process of bringing forth His abundance that we may be able to do His work. That mistake is this: no matter how abundant the situation or the circumstance may be, we stumble ourselves by focusing on the lack. We ruin what God has for us by focusing on what we don't have, rather than focusing on the abundance that we do. If you don't believe me, you can go back to the very first time we see record of sin in Genesis. Why? Because in Genesis, God says, "You have this world, it's all yours. You can eat freely of anything, everything. You have it all. Except one thing, don't eat this." Think about that. Would everybody agree that this planet is a pretty big planet? Yeah. Would you all agree that the square footage of this planet is definitely abundant? There are probably areas on this earth still to this day that we've not explored. Is it easy to say that if God created the heavens and the earth and He finished forming and fashioning it, that at His very stage that He described the creation of it, at every stage He said it was good? Nothing flawed with what He created. It was literally perfect. By the time the heavens and the earth were created and formed and fashioned, God basically told His people to be fruitful and to multiply, didn't He? He talked about this picture of having dominion over. He talked about this picture of being faithful and walking in that abundance specifically, five specific commands that relate to this issue. But because mankind decided to focus on the one thing they could not have, they forsook every beautiful resource that they already had. Not what they could have had, they destroyed every resource that they already had. I think about this a lot because I deal with this when I counsel people oftentimes that come to me in regret after they do the evil thing that they do. The most common place that I see this is a man who will come to me and he'll say, "I just need to get my wife back. I need to restore my family relationship." But they weren't thinking about what they had when they pursued what they didn't have in an adulterous relationship. They didn't think about all that God had given them until they allowed themselves to express what they had or what they wanted in their fleshly action, thus completely sabotaging everything that God had given them. It happens a lot. I see it all the time. I see people having so many wonderful things, so many good things to their name, yet they forsake it because they focus on what is lacking. They focus on what they perceive not to have, or they focus on what they simply don't have, when in reality everything that God has given to them in abundance is far greater than anything they could have ever desired or wanted. That's why oftentimes we have such a difficult time learning how to take the resources God has given us and use it in a way that brings or extenuates that abundance. That's why for those of you that weren't a part of it or weren't here for our men's conference, at the very end of the conference we issued a challenge to the men. What we did was we gave them $20. Each of them got $20. They got that $20 back from a portion of their registration. The goal was they were given a very specific set of assignments to do things with the money that they had been given. They were asked to give a certain percentage to the Lord, to give a certain percentage to—I mean, they were all projects that dealt with creating a situation and a circumstance where they would be deeply challenged. Because the temptation in taking on a challenge that involves $20 to do five different things with is to focus on how little that money actually is and then limiting yourself by lying to yourself what you can or cannot do, instead of recognizing that what was put in that envelope for you to do a specific work is so unbelievably abundant. But you don't see that because you allow your brain to not see it. As a result, your focus on what you don't have destroys the very thing that you do. It's interesting to think about that for just a second. Now, this becomes very important because God gave us this world to do that, just like this husbandman, just like this owner of the vineyard dressed up this vineyard. He gave us the expectation to do well with it. The problem is we didn't. We sinned against God. We sinned against God. We chose not to obey God in what He gave us and what He entrusted us with. So we acted rebelliously within the call that was placed upon us. God gave us the call to be good stewards of what we have, and we ignored it because we allowed ourselves to focus on fleshly pursuits. We allowed ourselves to focus on things that we could not see because we have blinded ourselves, and we have chosen to become spatially disoriented. We have chosen to allow ourselves to go in a tailspin because we chose to at one point rebel against God. That's what we did. We said, "Okay, well, I'm going to do it my way." Okay, fair enough. But you know what God will do? When it's due season, when it's time to cash in on the investment that He made to you, He's going to send a messenger. He sent to the husbandmen a servant. That's verse two. That he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they did what? They caught him and they beat him and sent him away. Tell me who that sounds like to you. God sent a servant to go speak to the husbandmen, didn't He? Should we bring one example of a servant that He sent to go speak to the husbandmen? Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. There are so many. In the story of Jeremiah, he gets beat up. They burn his life's work. Literally, his life's work gets burned and God says, "Start over again," and he did. God sent people, and when people came with the message, the message was rejected. And those people, not only was the message rejected, but those people were beat up. So what did God do? God said, "I've given up on this, I'm going to blow them all up." No. God did something else. Look at this. And again, he sent unto them another servant. And at him they cast stones and wounded him in the head and sent him away shamefully handled. Isn't that the story of the prophets? God sent one prophet, they ignore him, slap him around, "Get out of here, shoo fly, don't follow me." He sends another prophet, they push him, spit on him, beat him. He sends another prophet, what do they do? They beat him up, stone him, threaten his life, harm him. Look what the husbandmen does. Very interesting to think about this, right? This man, look what he does to the husbandmen. Look what happens. So he sent another, and notice this, and him they killed, and many others, beating some and killing some. That's interesting. Well, I'm going to send some more. I'm going to send some more people to warn and to confront and to deal with. You know what these guys did? Even though they were entrusted by God with something so beautiful, they decided they were going to kill the messenger. Not only did they kill the messenger, they killed multiple messengers. You think about the ministry of the prophets. The last of the living of the prophets that Jesus called as the greatest prophet that ever lived. Jesus called him the greatest prophet that ever lived, John the Baptist. What did they do with John the Baptist? They chopped his head off. Because he got involved in something political. He was political. Look what happens. You can put this together now, can't you? Having yet, therefore, one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, "They will receive my son." Now think about this. Notice it doesn't say his rebellious son. It doesn't say he sent his son that he hated. It says he sent his only son, well-loved. They were close. I love my son with my whole heart. My little guy is the most special little human being, man, little human man in my life, just like my little girls are. I love my babies. I went to go record right before church service. I came back. If you could draw a picture of a homicide scene of a tape dispenser, that's what it looked like on my desk. Tape everywhere. Tape dispenser knocked over, looks like it might have a crack in it. I see this thick stack of paperwork sitting on my desk. "What's this, babe?" Well, our son somehow managed to hit the print button on one of your documents. "What document?" I don't know, because it's not like Nicole is just sitting there eating bonbons watching Telemundo, you know what I mean? Kids are fast. They do things that like they have super destruction mode. You know what I'm talking about? That's what they are, they're destructive. Then I turn around because I notice what the paperwork is, it's like some kind of confidential stuff. How he even pulled it up from the computer, I don't know. So I go to turn around to the shredder to go put it in the shredder to destroy it, and there's gum in the shredder. "Son, did you put the gum in the shredder?" "Yeah, Bubba, yeah." Really? Then he does something cute, and I pick him up. This is right before church service. He does something cute right before he goes to Sunday school. And I pick him up and I say, "All right, honey, you're so cute, give me a kiss." And I pucker up to give me a kiss, and you know what he does? He headbutts me. Not like I'm going to headbutt you like because I want to hurt you, like he goes to kiss me as hard as he can and it hurts. You know what I'm talking about? So I said, "No, don't do that, that's not nice." Bam, again. It's easy to get mad and frustrated and my kid's going crazy and running amok and all that stuff. With as crazy wild as my son is, there is not a human being on this earth, not a human being on this earth that I would sacrifice him for. Nobody. I would never in a million years put my son in harm's way. Somebody harms my son, God forbid that that person would view the man that I can be. There would be no way. But God took His absolutely beloved son, His only son, and sacrificed His son to the animals, to the wolves, knowing that there would be a chance for redemption and there would be people that would be redeemed. But they killed him. Jesus asks a very important question. This is critical. Okay, this is very, very critical. Verse nine: "What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do?" Notice what he said. "He will come and destroy the husbandmen and will give the vineyard unto others." Interesting. You know, I hate this phrase. It's been communicated a lot lately. You see it even passing by some churches and it says "Love is love." No, it's not. God is love. Your twisted definition of what love is is actually hate. But people don't get it. They don't understand it for the same reason why we don't get it. We don't understand it because we were born in a condition of complete and total depravity. And until we are willing to examine carefully our instrumentation which is designed to guide us forward, we will never find ourselves in a place of victory. So the answer to the rhetorical question that Jesus imposed is that the lord of the vineyard is going to come and destroy those people that kill the son, only to give the opportunity to somebody else. But did you catch that? Only to give the opportunity to somebody else. Like if it was me, first of all, I wouldn't send my son. But even if I did and that happened, forgive me, I think you guys would understand what I mean when I say this, I would be coming back for them and I would bring the grave and hell with me. I would burn it all completely down. There would be no hope. Yet the God of heaven, through allowing to happen what He allowed to happen, knowing full well what would happen, created a condition by which those who are judged will be judged, but those who have been given redemption will have another chance to move forward. But this is where it gets even more interesting. And that is the discussion of the chief cornerstone. By the way, let me tell you where the chief cornerstone discussion comes from. We actually, this is really cool, there's a lot of new archaeological stuff happening in Israel right now that really puts this into perspective and that's a massive rabbit trail to be chasing, and I'm going to tell you something, there's a lot there. But when the temple was being built, this is during the actually there's a rumor that it happened during both temple periods, believe it or not. That's a little harder to verify than one of them. But the idea here is that there's this stone that is called the cornerstone, or the chief cornerstone. It's the stone that really the building of the infrastructure really depends upon because it creates for the infrastructure an engineering feat. It keeps the structure from falling down as a result of disruptive forces and it's a very important piece in order to keep things as they should be in order to maintain a certain level of order. When that cornerstone was designed, it was designed in a way that after it was quarried, it would be delivered to the builders. And when they saw it, because it was a cornerstone, they would oftentimes reject it because they would say that it was a stone that looked out of place. The shape was unusual, the characteristics about it did not make a lot of sense. It was very unique in the sense that it didn't seem to really completely fit. Yet without it, you could not have the establishment of the infrastructure that actually brought salvation to the people. Isn't that funny how that works? The Bible tells us that Jesus is the chief cornerstone that the builders rejected. When you think about the significance or the consequence of that statement, it becomes even more powerful. And by the way, it's not a coincidence that you see more discussion of this in the book of Peter, when in reality as I've talked to you guys before, Peter was the one who was believed to have been the writer of this although Mark physically wrote it, it would have been Peter that would have guided the writing of this. But isn't it interesting to think about the picture that the same cornerstone that was rejected by mankind would be the very one that would not only bring salvation through what it did in solidifying the infrastructure, but it would also be the one that would fall upon others and crush them to powder? Think about that for a minute. The picture here is pretty significant. The picture here is pretty consequential. The picture here is pretty powerful. It is drawing for us a deeper understanding of what it was these men were guilty of and how easy we could be guilty of the same thing. I do want to bring up one thing that I think is really unique here and that is to read the detail that's given to us in verse 12. It says they sought to lay hold on Him, but feared the people, for they knew that He had spoken the parable against them, and they left Him and went their way. By the way, if they had known that Jesus was speaking that parable against them, that would also mean they would have had to have known the Bible, and they would have had to have known the Bible very, very well. Very well to know that this was speaking against them. Most people would hear this story, by the way, just so you know, most people that hear the story, especially if they're new in the Lord, and they would never make the parallel in their minds of God the Father being the one who creates the earth, that mankind would be the ones that were the husbandmen entrusted to all of that, only to ruin it, and Him sending the prophets and all the other people to address the issue only to be rejected, and then finally sending His son and His son dying. The only group of people that would have perceived this to be a discussion that was condemning them would have been a group of people that knew the Bible so well that they would have recognized what was being done and had their hearts been so hard—had to have been so hard—that they would still reject all that God would do. And not just reject all that God would do, but prepare a plot and a plan to seek to destroy Him, but chose to back off because they knew what the implications would be with the people around them. This is a very scary part of the Bible for me. It's a really, really scary part of the Bible. And I'll tell you why it's a scary part of the Bible. It's a scary part of the Bible because I'm a pastor. Level with you. This might be new news to you, I'm a pastor. Do you know that to a degree I get paid to use my words? My words in an overwhelming majority of what I do bring my livelihood and my compensation. I do it for a living. I get paid to know the Bible, hopefully better than anybody else. I get paid to make Bible study the core of my life. I get paid to know it inside out. But you know the most important thing I get paid to do, and it's an honor and a privilege? I get paid to make sure that my walk with God is closer than it ever has been before in my life. But here's the part that scares me. If God has given me the supernatural ability to exercise my skill set of verbal representation in a way that is so effective, it holds and bears the power to manipulate. It can change people's minds in a heartbeat. And if I couple with that the supernatural talent that God has given me to be able to understand His Word in ways that lots of technical experts will never know, how easy do you think it would be for me to take a passage, a lesson, a piece of insight, and wrap it up in a way where I manipulate the people that I'm talking to to bring for myself a benefit that I could always want? You see, what these guys did was egregious. What they did was horrible. What they did was horrendous. It wasn't just a crime against humanity, it was a crime against Almighty God in a way that very few people could ever do it. Yet they had the culmination of the knowledge that what they did was wrong, with the ability to make representations clearly and distinctly, to navigate the political, and instead of using that skill set to educate, build up, lift up the people that they were supposed to be ministers to, they did it to connive and scheme to bring for themselves their desired outlook. I think this should be a warning to all of us. I think this should be something that is used by God to wake us up in a way that recognizes that when God is trying to speak to us, the responsibility that we have is to respond in humility and do the thing that He's asked us to do.
Guest (Male): More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.
Outro Song: I have found the peace only comes from You. I have found the joy only comes from You. ‘Cause all I need is You.