Vineyard Tenants: Mark 12

Yesterday, we had a terrific time watching Mark 12 unfold before us in an awesome vision. The discipleship church God gave me to handle (for a while) saw how God's vineyard is presently doing and how His household operates in it. 

Tenants

Tenants are renting the vineyard. and tenants are bible-believing people (like the Pharisees and law teachers in Jesus' time) who are tasked with collecting fruit. They need not plant because the vineyard Owner, before leaving, put up everything needed in it--the hedges, tower, wine press, and the plants themselves. In fact, it says the Owner "planted" a vineyard. And His design is for one single vineyard, not subdivisions.

The tenants or farmers are not household servants--they're there supposedly to gather fruits so that when household servants are sent to collect them they'd be ready. But tenants are not servants--they're there for two selfish ulterior motives--to keep the fruits for themselves and grab the vineyard for themselves. They're land grabbers. They're out to grab the vineyard from the Son, the Heir, and name the vineyard under them. 

In fact, they sabotage the design of the Owner--they subdivide it (denominationalism). The Owner planted a vineyard--one single vineyard; it does not say "vineyards." Neither does it say that the Owner intended to later subdivide it. It is clear that the Owner planted a vineyard and intends it to stay a (single piece) vineyard.

Unmasking Tenants

The tenants are people who pretend to be vineyard workers, who believe the bible, who teach sound bible-based doctrines, who can preach well and handle God's truth according to human homiletics and theology, but do so because they want to steal vineyard fruits. 

They claim the fruits as their own (they hate it when other churches "steal" their members, feeling that they own people's lives), and aim to steal the vineyard from the Son. Oh, how they hate the Son, at the same time pretending to be His servants. They never do things according to his supernatural and spiritual ways alone. They prefer to do things in the world's ways. 

Tenants are never contented with what the Owner has provided. They think that the hedges, the tower, wine press, and plants that the Owner has built are not enough--even obsolete--so they put up other things in the vineyard--things they copied from the world, like titles, degrees, human theology, denominations, and denominational doctrines and manuals or policies.

Household Servants

Household servants are true servants. Their only concern in life is look for fruits and collect them for the Master. To them, no fruit means wickedness, unfaithfulness, and rebellion. Tenants may try to impress them with their self-effort "accomplishments" in the vineyard, but servants don't care a bit about anything outside what the Owner has built and established in the vineyard. Servants are loyal to the Owner, and therefore decry how tenants have subdivided the vineyard into their own territories, each with different doctrines and policies.

True servants look for genuine fruits, which the tenants have stolen. It's not that there aren't any fruits; the thing is, the tenants stole them. Thus, tenants hate servants and persecute and murder them. If you're not particular about fruits (fruit that last) and are not persecuted for Christ's sake, you're nothing but a tenant renting on God's vineyard. True sons and daughters need not rent--they're co-heirs with Christ.

Many today are in the vineyard, working very hard, but not to glorify the Master and His vineyard, but to steal portions of the vineyard, title them and name them for themselves, claiming them to be their territories, and stealing the fruits. They have enriched themselves on these. Later, they aim to kill the Son also.

The Son: The Last Move of God

The Son, Jesus Christ, is the last move of God on earth these last days. Christ must be genuinely formed in us and we must be crucified so that we no longer live but Christ HIMSELF lives in us. This means we give up everything--and I mean everything, especially our denominations. 

Christ desires the complete unity of all believers (Jn.17), and if Christ is really in you, this should be among your earnest desires, too. You should leave your denomination and join Christ's glorious church, which is without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. This church is the single, undivided, non-denominational vineyard of God. God will soon "come and kill those tenants and give the vineyards to others" [Mk.12.9]. He already did this with the Pharisees and law teachers and had given the vineyard to Christians. 

Later, however, the Christians also greedily grabbed the vineyard and subdivided it among themselves. Now, God is coming and destroying "Christian: churches put up bu men and gradually taking the vineyard away from them and giving to others--to those who have Christ genuinely formed in them. They do not belong to any denomination; they are genuine Kingdom servants.

Soon, when Christ is perfected in these servants, and Christ lives and is seen in them (Christ is really manifested in them because they no longer live), the "tenants" will see the Son in them and hate them, because in truth,  they hate the Son. Then, these bible-believing "vineyard workers" will persecute and kill them. 

In the first coming of Jesus, the Messiah, it was bible-believing people who persecuted and killed Him--not pagans. In the second coming of Jesus, it will be bible-believing people who will again kill Him--by killing true believers in Christ.

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