But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.’But the farmers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance.
3 sermons cite this verse
Wait till you have a seat. so I recently came across a story of a tragic a tragic story of a father and a son they were close it was the son was an ordinary son young kid his father was a great dad and it was very very clear that this father loved his son very very much at one point they were on a, they were in the wilderness together and there was an accident and in the midst of this accident the father had a choice, the father had the opportunity, he could either save his own life or he could sacrifice his life and save his son's life and without thinking, without hesitating, this father sacrificed his own life so that his son could live. The son obviously was devastated by this and not only because his dad, his father, but also he was devastated because he blamed himself. He thought it was his fault. So he just, it ate him up. So he wanted to get as far away from, as far away from his life as possible. …
Next I see here that man slays the Incarnate God—"Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." Whether Pilate intended to indicate that He was the Messiah, at any rate the Jews saw that this would be the meaning attached to His inscription over Christ's head. It would be said that their Messiah was crucified, consequently they desired that the writing might be altered, but Pilate would not alter it. Now, the Messiah of the Jews was none other than God in human flesh. Did not Isaiah speak of Him as Immanuel, God with us? He was that promised "Seed of the woman" who was to bruise the old serpent's head. This was He of whom David said, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit You at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool." He was David's Son, yet He was also David's Lord, and there He is—He has come among men and as God, He came to tabernacle in human flesh and dwell among men! It is a wonderful story that tells us how He was found as a Babe in Bethlehem's manger, where the shepherds came to adore Him and how He grew up among men as a Man like other men, working at the carpenter's bench in the shop of His reputed father, yet all the while He was God veiled beneath the humble form of the Son of Mary! Even when the time came for His manifestation unto Israel, He was still veiled, though His Godhead every now and then flashed through the veil of His Humanity. He bade the sea be still when its wild uproar threatened to engulf the vessel in which He and His disciples were. He worked such wonders that it was clear that all things obeyed Him. The fish came in swarms from the deep to the net which He had …
2. Take another example, and you will see the same thing still more strikingly. How overpowered should we be, nay not at the sight only, but at the very hearing of cruelties shown to a little child, and why so? for the same two reasons, because it was so innocent, and because it was so unable to defend itself. I do not like to go into the details of such cruelty, they would be so heart-rending. What if wicked men took and crucified a young child? What if they deliberately seized its poor little frame, and stretched out its arms, nailed them to a cross bar of wood, drove a stake through its two feet, and fastened them to a beam, and so left it to die? It is almost too shocking to say; perhaps, you will actually say it is too shocking, and ought not to be said. O, my brethren, you feel the horror of this, and yet you can bear to read of Christ's sufferings without horror; for what is that little child's agony to His? and which deserved it more? which is the more innocent? which the holier? was He not gentler, sweeter, meeker, more tender, more loving, than any little child? Why are you shocked at the one, why are you not shocked at the other? Or take another instance, not so shocking in its circumstances, yet introducing us to another distinction, in which Christ's passion exceeds that of any innocent sufferers, such as I have supposed. When Joseph was sent by his father to his brethren on a message of love, they, when they saw him, said, "Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him." They did not kill him, however, but they put him in a pit in spite of the anguish of his soul, and sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelites, and he was taken down into a foreign country, where he had no friends. Now this was most cruel and most cowardly in the sons of Jacob; and what is so especially shocking in it is, that Joseph was not only innocent and defenceless, their younger brother whom they ought to have protected, but besides that, he was so confiding and loving, that he need not have come to them, that he would not at all have been in their power, except for his desire to do them service. Now, whom does this history remind us of but of Him concerning whom the Master of the vineyard said, on sending Him to the husbandmen, "They will reverence My Son?" "But when the husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the Heir, come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance. And they caught Him, and cast Him out of the vineyard, and slew Him." Here, then, is an additional circumstance of cruelty to affect us in Christ's history, such as is suggested in Joseph's, but which no instance of a brute animal's or of a child's sufferings can have; our Lord was not only guiltless and defenceless, but He had come among His persecutors in love. …