By Sola Adeyegbe
Parable of the wicked tenants
Over time, Bringers of Truth have suffered mockery and scorn, persecution and attack because of man’s stubbornness. Even to this day, human beings like to consider that they are too clever and too wise to accept the explanations of the Will of their Creator from His Messengers. This is more so because these Messengers are never the products of mankind’s great institutions of learning!
And so it was that even when the Love of the Almighty inclined to this earth in Jesus, mankind did not welcome Him. Despite all the good He did, He remained an annoyance to them and was totally rejected. By hating Jesus mankind sided with the Antichrist and it is a proof of their enmity to the Father Who sent Christ.
The Son of God summed all these up when He gave us the Parable of the wicked tenants. In this Parable, he spoke of the master who sent out his servants to collect what was due to him from his tenants. But instead of receiving the rents, the servants were ridiculed by the tenants and beaten before they were scornfully sent back empty handed!
When this parable is pointed out today, many people try to gloss over it by calling it a mere parable! They prefer to believe that the main mission of Christ to the earth was to come and suffer and die for their sins and that it is a distinction conferred by God on His Messengers that they must suffer in this manner, instead of regarding it as a crime on the part of mankind which is not willed by God!
In negation of this position and to warn the people of the dire consequences of their decision to reject Jesus as their Lord, the account of this Parable from the Bible tells us that the master later sent his beloved son thinking that the tenants would respect him.
Please note that the master did not send his son in anticipation that he would be killed but in anticipation that the tenants would give him respect and listen to him. In the same vein we read in Luke 9:35: And a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him!” The voice did not say “kill him” but said “listen to Him!”.
Instead of this, the wicked tenants in the Parable killed the master’s son. Subsequently, the master destroyed the tenants and gave the vineyard to others.
What this means is that with the rejection and murder of Jesus, mankind became burdened with a terrible fate which is now being experienced in the World Judgement! The old covenant was annulled and now only those who pledge to serve the Almighty by living in accordance with the Truth will be partakers of the New Covenant with the Son of Man.
Let us therefore be watchful so that we might recognise the Son of Man as there really is not much time anymore for sitting on the fence, rigid dogmatism and stubbornness in this matter! Now is the time!
