Well, we're continuing our series on enduring wisdom from Luke's gospel. The Pharisees were devout

and extremely zealous for the law of Moses, the mosaic law, and for their own extra-biblical laws.

Now, their theology in many ways was biblically correct. They believed in the

resurrection. They believed in angels. They believed in demons. They believed in predestination. They believed

in human responsibility. And they believed in the Messiah's earthly kingdom. But while having

good theology, they failed to live up to their own standards themselves,

which is why Jesus calls them hypocrites. They wanted the respect of people, and they wanted the respect of God. And Jesus was revealing their hypocrisy

because they were refusing the very message of the gospel. And so we enter into this dinner party,

where it is the Sabbath. Jesus has been invited as a

participant of this dinner. And verse one says they were watching him carefully. What a strange

line to put in there, right? The Pharisees were wanting to find fault with Jesus.

They were wanting to find a reason to bring him down.

And they found plenty.

But they weren't legitimate reasons.

They were when he would go against whatever their man-made law was,

whatever the tradition that they held to,

whenever he was teaching against the power that they held to, whenever he was teaching against

the power that they were going after that they shouldn't have been.

Then in verse two, we read, and behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. So here

it is. It's a Sabbath, and here comes this man. What will Jesus do?

Remember, there is nothing preventing healing on the Sabbath in the law of Moses.

The only place you find that restriction is in the traditions of the elders, in their own traditional writings.

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