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Eleventh Sunday of Kingdomtide-Nov 20

17 Nov

Freedom and Domination-The prophets were very clear about responsibility. The saying had been, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge”, implying that the children suffered due to the sins of their parents. While all mankind suffers because of the sins of Adam and Eve, it is because we choose to follow their example and choose our way over God’s way. God gave the law to direct our behavior towards what God had intended but our desire is to obey the letter of the law while getting around it to get our way if possible. Since our heart seeks to disobey, even when we outwardly obey, our heart isn’t in it and we are rebelling against God’s law, and the penalty for sin is death. The people later demanded a king like the other nations but God warned them that the king would tax them and conscript their sons and daughters for his benefit and would lead them away from God. In fact, that is what the kings did. The prophets reminded the people that “the soul that sins will die”. Each man is responsible for his own behavior. Men want to have someone else in charge to make decisions and take the heat for bad decisions. When we appoint leaders over us, we are authorizing them to make decisions on our behalf. We then become responsible for their decisions. If they don’t do what we want, we should remove them if we can. If we can remove them and do not, we are consenting to their decisions. When leaders take power by force and try to force us to do something that violates God’s will, we must decide whether we will obey them or obey God. We cannot claim we violated God’s law because man told us to, because no man has the authority to override God’s commands. Ultimately, God will hold us accountable for our behavior and will hold them accountable for theirs.

 

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