Dear Explorer,
This is a continuation of the passage we started looking at yesterday. You might want to review yesterday's lesson if you don't remember it. Jesus is teaching a group of Pharisees who invited Him to dinner and then complained about His unclean hands. Jesus began teaching them.
Read Luke 11:43
Summarize what Jesus said was wrong.
What solution do you suggest?
How about you? Do you like to be honored and respected?
I think everyone appreciates being appreciated. But Jesus is talking about our motives for doing things. If you are serving Him in order to be honored by others – you better re-examine why you are serving!
Read Luke 11:44
What does Jesus call the Pharisees?
I think Jesus said this because the people really respected and looked up to these men and yet He knew that they were empty (dead) on the inside. The people didn't know that the Pharisees were not leading them rightly. They were totally clueless that following the priests and Pharisees was taking them into idolatry and “religiosity” and away from God.
Scary question: Who is leading you?
Remember that the Pharisees were the spiritual leaders of Israel. They were the spiritual elite of Jesus' day. They formed the top tier of Jewish society. They loved God and they loved His law. But they had gotten off track by focusing on their own “rules” and not on God's love and guidance. Their religion became following the rules. Yet, even though they had created so many – they were not following them!
Yes, Jesus did insult them and called them bad names. Why?
Because He wanted them to wake up and realize they were off track. Close your eyes and try to imagine these religious leaders of Jesus' day. Everyone bowed down to them, kissed their hands and lavished gifts on them. No one dared to cross them because of their great power. They were practically worshiped. They had never been called “bad” before. They were considered spiritual giants. And I want you to know that Jesus loved them – enough to try to wake them up and make them see the truth.
Sometimes when you are driving at night, you will meet a car traveling without its headlights on. The universal response is to blink your own headlights repeatedly and hope that they will realize their mistake before it's too late and a crash happens.
Read Luke 11:45-54
Jesus gives a long list of complaints that He has with the Pharisees, then Jesus summarizes them all in Luke 11:52. What was the summary?
Jesus says that most of all, the Pharisees refused to believe the prophecies that were written about Him and they hindered other people from coming to Him.
Because of these words Luke says that the Pharisees became really mad – mad enough to kill Jesus.
In His service, dale
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