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Temple Cleansed Again
353
you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye
believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him:
and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might
believe him.”
The priests and rulers could not but give a correct answer to
Christ’s question, and thus He obtained their opinion in favor of the
first son, who represented the publicans. When John came, preaching
repentance and baptism, the publicans received his message and were
baptized.
The second son represented the leading men of the Jewish na-
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tion who would not acknowledge that John came from God. They
“rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized
of him.”
Luke 7:30
. Like the second son, the priests and rulers
professed obedience, but acted disobedience.
The priests and rulers remained silent. But Christ said: “Hear
another parable. There was a certain householder, 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 husbandmen, 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?”
The priests and rulers answered, “He will miserably destroy
those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other hus-
bandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.” The
speakers now saw that they had pronounced their own condemnation.
As the husbandmen were to return to the lord a due proportion of
the fruits of the vineyard, so God’s people were to honor Him by a
life corresponding to their sacred privileges. But as the husbandmen
had killed the servants whom the master sent to them for fruit, so