the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 4 of 5
Luke 20:1-18
Had they been present when John baptised the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees would not have needed to ask the Lord by what authority He did "these things" (see Luke 7:30). God had solemnly declared Him to be His beloved Son and had endowed Him with power for His ministry (Luke 3:22). Besides, did not all that the Lord Jesus did and said clearly show that the Father had sent Him? (John 12:49-50).
The Lord still gives these men of bad faith the opportunity to recognise themselves in the parable of the wicked husbandmen. Refusing to give God the fruit of obedience, Israel had despised, maltreated and sometimes put to death His messengers and His prophets (2 Chronicles 36:15). And when God in love gave them His own Son, they did not hesitate to "cast him out of the vineyard" and to kill Him. But the Lord enumerates the terrible consequences of this last crime: God will cause this wicked people to perish. He will entrust to others (taken from among the nations) the task of bearing fruit for Him. Finally, if not one stone of the earthly temple will be allowed to remain upon another (Luke 19:44; Luke 21:5-6), Christ "the stone which the builders rejected" will become in His resurrection the precious foundation of a spiritual and a heavenly house which is the Assembly (read 1 Peter 2:4 . . .).
