We will now read from verse 11 of chapter 19 to verse 18 of chapter 20. We are putting those parts together which seem to belong to each other, though the chapters may separate them. We have here another instance of the way in which the Lord applies His mind to the correction of the moral scene around Him. The human mind is historic; the divine mind is moral. Here they were near the city, so they thought: a little advance, and the kingdom must appear. This was taking a simply historic view, and we are never right unless we are taking a moral view of everything. The mind of Christ was a moral mind.
The Lord addresses Himself to the thought of the multitude in the parable of the nobleman. The Lord gets His title to a kingdom sealed in heaven — but where is He to administer it? Not in heaven; He comes back to earth first. That is dispensational truth. He has, it is true, a kingdom now — “The kingdom of God is... righteousness, and peace, and joy.” But I speak here of His royal glory, hereafter to be displayed on the earth. He goes on in this strikingly fine parable to tell us of a certain nobleman, going into a far country, who called his servants and delivered them ten pounds; but his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Here are three parties — the departed nobleman hid in a distant country for a time — the servants who were to occupy till his return — and the citizens. This is graphic of the moment in which you live. The Lord has gone to the distant heavens to transact many things. One of these is to receive for Himself a kingdom. In Daniel 7 you see the nobleman in the distant country, but this parable only tells you that He has gone there. It is beautiful to see the prophet and the Apostle thus mingling their lights together.
The citizens were at that moment the Jewish people, but the enmity of the Jew is now the enmity of the world at large, which has let the Lord Jesus know it will not have Him for king. That is the relationship the world bears to Christ. The servants are those who profess to serve Him while He is absent. There is a moral secret embosomed in this part of the parable. I am never really in the spirit of service if I do not remember that He is an absent and a rejected Lord. If I serve Him as king, I do not do it, to say the least, in dispensational wisdom. I am not now a subject to a king, but a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that his master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought, that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped upon Him here are so many fresh claims on our affection? Service, to be in the right character, should be in the recollection that it is rendered to One who has been cast out and refused. You might do but little, but that little would have a precious quality if rendered in the affection of one who owns the insults the Lord has received.
Then He returns and gives the rewards. There is such a secret as rewards. When the kingdom comes to be parceled out, I have not a bit of doubt that there will be rewards. But there was one that hid his talent; and now, mark the Lord's reply for your comfort. “Wherefore... gavest not thou my money into the bank?” He did not say, Why have you not traded with it? I may not have the energy and activity of my brother, but the Lord would say here, Well, do not be afraid, if you have not energy to go out and serve Me; at any rate own Me, and put My money into the bank. But this man had no spirit of service; he did not know grace; he feared. As far as we have a legal mind, we are serving ourselves. That is this man. The best thought he had was to serve himself — to come off free in the day of reckoning. So he was cut off as one that had no link with Christ. I love that “bank.” If I have not the energy of my brother in service, at least let me own that I am not my own, but bought with a price. Let us cultivate in our souls the hidden spirit that says, Though I may be feeble, yet one thing, I will cleave to Christ — I am His and not my own.
How beautifully He links the next scene with what had gone before! There were two missions on which He sent His disciples; the first was to get the ass — the second, to get the guest chamber. But the ass must precede the guest chamber. Do you see the beauty of that? You must distinguish His dispensational actings — His rejection before His return. The mission to get the ass was that He might offer Himself to the daughter of Zion in glory. He was rejected and, as it were, asked to descend from off the ass — so He must be a guest in this world and pass on to His cross.
Here we get the Lord in royal glory, seated on the ass, descending the Mount of Olives, and about to enter the city. The multitudes follow, with palm branches and exultation, and the King is seen in full beauty. God is taking the thing into His own hands. “The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.” Jesus took the place of Jehovah—Creator in Psalm 24. He had a richer title to the ass than the owner of it had. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The owner bows to His claim, and in He goes, in the midst of the acclamations of His people. But now the Pharisees say, “Master, rebuke Thy disciples.” That was the heart of the nation exposing itself in the representatives of the people. The mind of the nation stood out in that saying, “Master, rebuke Thy disciples.” That was rejection. “We will not have this man to reign over us.”
The Lord then laments over the city. Instead of being the city of peace, Jerusalem would have to go through another history altogether. Jerusalem is but a sample of the world in general, and because of the rejection of Christ, the world will have to go through a very different history than if it had been prepared for Him. The world has forced the blessed Lord up to heaven through His cross, and now it must go to the kingdom through its judgment. He went to display His beauty to the daughter of Zion, but the daughter of Zion was not prepared for Him, so He weeps over her and announces the judgment she brought upon herself. The world is not prepared for Him, and the earth must pass to its rest through the judgments that will purge it of its defilements.
Now they suggested a bit of subtlety. But there was not a bit of subtlety in the Lord's mind as He answered them. He did not lay a snare for them, though it acted as a trap. His purpose was divine. John the Baptist being rejected, it followed that Christ Himself would be rejected. It was as much as to say, I will let God answer you. In John you have God's answer to your question. It was God's way to reach Messiah through John, and as he was rejected, so would Christ Himself be.
Now look a little at the next parable. Here is another “far country.” “A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time.” When was that? In the days of Joshua the Lord planted a goodly vineyard and left it in the hands of Israel and told them to till it. I need not tell you how judge after judge, prophet after prophet was raised up, and all in vain. Then said the lord of the vineyard, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves.” Ah! BEWARE OF REASONING. “So they cast him out of the vineyard. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?” This brings us just where the parable of the departed noble brought us — to judgment. “He shall come and destroy those husbandmen.” If you put these two parables together, you will get a beautiful sketch of God's dealings from the days of Joshua till the Lord's return in glory. The laborers in the vineyard give us God's dealings with Israel till the rejection of Christ, the heir of the vineyard. The parable of the “ten pounds” carries us through the present age, up to the second coming, or the kingdom of Christ. He has now gone into the distant country, not to send back servants to seek for fruit, but to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return and execute judgment. I will just ask one thing: Is it the case that the Lord is seated in heaven till His enemies are made His footstool? You know it is. That thought in the 110th Psalm links itself with both these parables. There He is expecting till His enemies are made His footstool, and here His enemies are made His footstool. These are the beautiful luminous fragments that Scripture throws in here and there, and tells you to go over the field and gather them up, and when you have filled your basket, to bring them home and feed upon them.