Title Don't Criticize the Leader
Contents
Don't criticize your leaders
Text: Romans 2: 1-11 “Therefore, you have no excuse whatsoever, you who judge others, in judging others, in which you condemn yourself, for you who judge do the same thing” (Romans 2:1).
At a university graduation ceremony, students were receiving their diplomas one after the other. There was one scene that stood out to one of the congratulatory guests as they watched the sequence progress. A student put one hand in his pocket, received his diploma with the other, and passed without even shaking hands from the president. The congratulatory guest said, 'The world has changed a lot, there are some cheeky students. To get a diploma with one hand, what has this school taught you for four years?'
Then a student sitting next to me said:
"It's not. That's a student who lost an arm and had a prosthetic leg instead and went to school for four years."
Then, the congratulatory guests who criticized them as they could be seen blushed and said they were ashamed of speaking indiscriminately.
“Judge not, lest you be judged, for with the judgment with which you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure that you measure, it will be measured to you. do you not understand?” (Matthew 7:1-3)
A Christian leader said about the earthquake and disaster in Japan, "Japan is originally a country with many earthquakes, and I am sorry that the earthquake caused a lot of damage to property and loss of lives. May God's comfort be with you. From a religious point of view, the Japanese people are so far away from God that they go out toward idolatry, atheism, and materialism, so I wonder if this is a warning from God. I hope that it will be a blessing to the phone and come back to the Lord at this opportunity.”
He said, “Korea is at a time when a spiritual earthquake that is more holy than the physical earthquake in Japan should occur,” he said. However, many people curse and criticize the leader at these words.
The Old Testament prophets delivered a message calling for repentance when the Israelites worshiped idols.
In order to please people's ears, only sweet words of comfort are delivered, and if you can't deliver the bitter words of God's truth, you are not qualified to be a leader. And I think that pointing out that the earthquake in Japan is idolatry is not because we hate Japan, but because we love Japan so much that we do not want to go to the more terrifying lake of hellfire in the future.
In Numbers, when Moses took a Cushite woman, his sister Miriam slandered Moses. This caused Miriam to suffer from leprosy. To criticize a leader whom God has anointed is rebellion against God. (Numbers 12:1-10)
A true leader delivers what God has said.
In 2 Chronicles 18:12-34, Prophet Micaiah left behind the words that pleased people's ears and preached only the word of God itself. When King Ahab heard the prophecy that he would die, he became angry and ordered the prophet Micaiah to be put in prison (2 Chronicles 18:26). kept it. In the end, Ahab died on the battlefield of Ramoth Gilead, just as Micaiah prophesied.
Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would be judged by God and destroyed by Babylon for not repenting. Because the whole nation was full of iniquity, they had to be destroyed. The only way they could be saved was through repentance (Jeremiah 7:1~8:3).
As Jeremiah continued these prophecies, even his hometown and relatives framed him and tried to kill him. Judas, who had walked the path of sin without repenting like this, eventually perished and went into captivity for 70 years. We are fragile human beings, so we can sometimes make mistakes and go astray. Sometimes even Christian leaders can make mistakes or commit sins. But that fact alone does not completely sell the leader.
There are no perfect people in the world, and if you do not want to be criticized, you must not criticize.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).
A man about to get married has traveled the world in search of his 'perfect spouse'. He looked around the world, deciding that it would be impossible for him to marry the mate he had envisioned. I wasted 40 years like this, but I could not marry such a woman. a friend asked him.
"You're 70 now, so there hasn't been a woman like that in the world?"
"Actually, I've only met such a woman once. But she was looking for the 'perfect man'. So the marriage didn't happen." No one is perfect in this world. We only understand, forgive, and love each other.
“Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
Even Noah, the righteous man in the Bible, got drunk and made a mistake. David, the great king after God's own heart, also sinned, but when he repented, God loved him. Abraham, the father of faith, also deceived his wife Sarah as his sister, and Jesus' disciple Peter denied it three times before the cock crowed. Therefore, we should not criticize or curse others for their faults and sins.
“Let the one who eats not despise the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat do not criticize the one who eats. for God has accepted him. Who are you who judge another's servant? Whether he stands or falls, it is with his master, and he will be built up, for in the Lord is the power to build him” (Romans 14:3,4).
However, like Kim Jong-il, everyone recognized dictators, heresy, and idolatry.