“I’d like your opinion about this: There’s this guy I know who had two kids. He asked one kid to clean up his room and the kid stubbornly answered ‘No way!’ But after some thought, the kid changed his mind and cleaned up his room. The father went to his second kid and asked her to do the same thing. She answered, ‘Of course, Dad. Whatever you want.’ But she never did go to clean up her room. So which of these two did what their father wanted them to do?” They responded, “The first kid.”

Jesus then said, “It is for this reason that the drug addicts and the sex workers will experience God’s utopia and you won’t. John showed you the way of God and you didn’t believe him so as to repent and be baptized. But the drug addicts and sex workers flocked to him to get a new start. You all saw this, but you still didn’t change your mind to repent and be baptized.

Now listen to this story. A man owned a few blocks in an urban area, so he built a set of apartment buildings there, rented them out and then set managers over each building to keep them up and to collect the rent. Month after month, he sent employees to the managers to collect the proceeds, but the managers shut one out, beat up another, and another disappeared and was never heard from again. Then the owner sent groups of employees to collect his proceeds, and this started a gang war, but it didn’t get him a single dime. So then the owner sent his son figuring that the sight of him would cause the managers to reconsider their actions. But seeing the owner’s son at the door, the managers decided quickly that if the son was out of the way, the owner, being old and feeble, there being no one to care for the property after him, would just wither and fade away. So they grabbed the son, took him out of the city and killed him, leaving his body exposed to the elements. So let me ask you, what do you think the owner will do to those managers?”

One answered, “He will call the police?” Everyone listening to this laughed. Then another said, “In his fury, he will do to those evil managers exactly what they did to him. He will kill them all and give the management to someone who will give to him what he deserves.”

Jesus replied, “You are correct. So what is your problem? Haven’t you read in the Word, ‘The one whom the leaders rejected as a criminal has been chosen as the king of them all—and this is an amazing thing to see’? God’s nation will be taken away from you and given to a people who will give Him the proceeds he requires.”

Matthew 21:28-43