Luke 20:16 (KJV)
He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.
Jesus spoke a parable titled in my Bible The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, but I think it should be titled The Parable of the Patient Landlord.
It’s hard to fathom his patience. The landlord sent three servants to collect the rent. They were beaten, wounded, and sent away empty. You’d think that would be enough.
Not so this landlord. He finally sent his son to represent him before the tenants.
They killed him!
The tenants assumed ownership of that which was not theirs. They lost sight of whose property they were privileged to work. They presumed they could do as they pleased without consequences.
But consequences they faced! They were destroyed, and the vineyard was given to others.
Now hear the reaction of Jesus’s audience: “And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.”
It was the landlord they judged, and not the tenants. After all his patience, they objected to his judgment.
The applications in the parable are many. It’s primarily speaking of the Jews who had presumed upon God through all those years He had blessed them, and of the Gentiles, to whom the Lord would turn in the near future. They did not believe God had the right to make this change.
I see much the same attitude among people of all tongues in our day.
They have forgotten from whence their life and breath come. They have presumed ownership of themselves and their choices. They demand that they be allowed to do as they please without consequences.
They think God is a monster, unjust, or simply nonexistent because He judges people for their opinions, pleasures, and will. They call Christianity hateful for calling lost souls to repentance and identifying accepted social practices as sinful, evil, and ungodly.
Like those who heard Jesus’s parable, they judge the One who has been patient with them. They object when the God who gave them life holds them accountable for how they live.
But the Bible assures us that consequences they will face.
“And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.”
#Luke20v16 #ThePatientLandlord #GodsLongsuffering #CallToRepentance #AccountableToGod
Evil Has Real Consequences: Blaming the One They Wronged
The tenants beat the servants and killed the son—yet the audience objected to the landlord’s judgment. Are we doing the same when we blame God for judging our sin?
Read this Daily Visit with God on Luke 20:16, then leave a comment: Why do people question God’s justice instead of admitting their guilt?
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