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PARABLE OF THE INVITED ONES – POLITICAL LEADERS?
LORD’S DAY, JUNE 14
Luke 14:1-11

Memory verse: Luke 14:3-4

 

“And they could not answer him

again to these things.”

 

PARABLE OF THE INVITED ONES – POLITICAL LEADERS?
 
When church leaders become political leaders, the death nail has already been driven into the coffin of that local church. Church leaders are spiritual leaders. The characteristics of political leaders include doing what is right in their own eyes, pleasing man, deceiving their undiscerning followers through opinions that they cloak deceptively by citing Bible verses, and being by nature cultic. They fear losing face; as such, they struggle with repentance, for they cannot afford to lose the man-centred aura their delusional mind has manufactured.
 
Jesus went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day. It was a very high honour to be invited to such a home! The enemies of Christ watched Him insidiously. He deliberately healed a man with dropsy, i.e. water retention in the body where the limbs would swell. Before Jesus healed him, He asked these very important people (lawyers and Pharisees) who were present if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. They kept silent. Then Jesus healed him, and asked them if they would pull out an ass or an ox from a pit if it had fallen into it. Again, they said nothing.
 
Why did they not answer the Lord? They knew the answer to these questions, and so did the ordinary Jews. These lawyers and Pharisees were like religious police officers who demanded that the Jews kept their oral traditions or else they would be punished for their disobedience.
 
If they had answered Christ, their answer would have been no, for no one could heal on the Sabbath day. Their answer to the second question would have been yes, they would definitely pull their ass and ox out of the pit! To answer Jesus would have resulted in a shameful contradiction they could not afford. They could not bear to be wrong in their teaching and practice of God’s Word, as they were the guardians of God’s Word. They would lose face in the eyes of their followers! Being seen as important and clever meant that they could not publicly admit that they had been wrong. Beware of such church leaders, and beware that you do not become one!
 
THOUGHT: Am I a man-pleaser with a cultic personality?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, help me to please Thee all the days of my life, for Thou must increase and I must decrease, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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