God on the Throne

This next section has to do with the difference between “religion” and Christianity. Religion is constantly trying to dethrone God. Think about Catholics who pray to saints and worship the Virgin Mary and bow down to the Pope. Or Mormons who have to ask the Bishop for forgiveness. Christianity is all about Jesus and our relationship with Him and acknowledging what He did for us.

Mark 12:1-8 Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. ² At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³ But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵ He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed. ⁶ “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

Jesus was talking to the chief priests, scribes and church elders here. His parable actually referred to a passage in Isaiah they would have been familiar with:

Isaiah 5:1-2 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard:  My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. ² He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

God had given Israel everything and they turned against Him. Now Jesus is telling the church leaders that they are the reason “the wine is bad.” And He also tells them that the vineyard owner (God) sent His own Son and they were going to kill Him. In just 3 days this is exactly what happened!

 Jesus was letting them know He knew about their plot and that they were under condemnation because they had killed the other profits and now planned on killing Christ.

 The church leaders were trying to dethrone God. Instead of doing everything for God’s glory, they did it for their own.