506
The Desire of Ages
The second son represented the leading men of the Jewish nation.
Some of the Pharisees had repented and received the baptism of John;
but the leaders would not acknowledge that he came from God. His
warnings and denunciations did not lead them to reformation. They
“rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized
of him.”
Luke 7:30
. They treated his message with disdain. Like
the second son, who, when called, said, “I go, sir,” but went not, the
priests and rulers professed obedience, but acted disobedience. They
made great professions of piety, they claimed to be obeying the law
of God, but they rendered only a false obedience. The publicans were
denounced and cursed by the Pharisees as infidels; but they showed by
their faith and works that they were going into the kingdom of heaven
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before those self-righteous men who had been given great light, but
whose works did not correspond to their profession of godliness.
The priests and rulers were unwilling to bear these searching truths;
they remained silent, however, hoping that Jesus would say something
which they could turn against Him; but they had still more to bear.
“Hear another parable,” Christ said: “There was a certain house-
holder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and
digged a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husband-
men, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew
near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive
the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one,
and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants
more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all
he sent unto them his son, saying, 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.
When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto
those husbandmen?”
Jesus addressed all the people present; but the priests and rulers
answered. “He will miserably destroy those wicked men,” they said,
“and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall
render him the fruits in their seasons.” The speakers had not at first
perceived the application of the parable, but they now saw that they had
pronounced their own condemnation. In the parable the householder
represented God, the vineyard the Jewish nation, and the hedge the