Devotional Guide, Today’s Reading Monday, July 22, 2019

Theme: SOME PARABLES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST

Text: “Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” – Matthew 21:42.

Comment: Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, prophetically disclosed the eventual rejection, shame and destruction that awaits the Jewish leaders and all false religious leaders.  The entire account is contained in Matthew 21:33-44.  It has to do with a householder, who had a vineyard. He fenced or hedged it roundabout, dug a winepress and built a tower in it, before letting it out to husbandmen (farmers).  (A winepress is a device used to squeeze juice from grapes as the first procedure in wine making) When it was time for harvest, the householder sent his servants at varying times to the husbandmen that they may hand them the produce.  Strangely, they beat up some of the servants, stoned and killed others.  At last, he sent his son to them, with the expectation that he would be treated with reverence but instead, they “caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him”. – Matthew 21:39.

The likes of these husbandmen are religious leaders who, instead of seeking ways to propagate the saving gospel of the Kingdom for the benefit of God’s sheep, instead engage themselves in vices that tend to stifle the progress of Theocracy.  He pronounced woe on them because they “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer (allow) ye them that are entering to go in.” – Matthew 23:13.

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