James H. Cagle
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The Bible (KJV) says, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Mt. 15: 14).
In our text Jesus is speaking of the Pharisees as blind and those that follow their leadership as blind, and says, that ultimately they will both, as blind people who lead blind people do, fall into the ditch.
People who are naturally blind do not ask other blind people to lead them, which would be ludicrous, because they would be no better off. They instead get the help of a person with sight to lead them.
This blindness Jesus spoke of, is not physical blindness but spiritual blindness. It’s spiritual darkness without the light and understanding of God’s Word (Ps. 119: 105).
We are all born in spiritual darkness and blindness and for a person to receive their spiritual sight and come out of darkness they must receive the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4: 4; 1 Pet. 2: 9).
Jesus said men do not come to the light because they love the pleasures of sin and their darkness and lest the light reproves their evil deeds, but those that are saved and living by the truth will come to the truth (God’s Word) to see that their lives are lived according to God’s will (Jn. 3: 19-21).
But there are plenty of religious organizations that are led by spiritually blind people who will lead these blind people with a lot of religious superstition and “commandments of men” (Mt. 15: 9), that will eventually lead them straight to Hell (Mt. 23: 15).
The people of Berea were not going to be blindly led, not even by Paul, for they searched the Scriptures to see if what Paul was preaching was so, or true (Acts 17: 10, 11).
Many of the blind religious leaders of our day are like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They are “hypocrites” (Mt. 15: 7), “whitewashed tombs” (Mt. 23: 27), “serpents” (Mt. 23: 33), and “of (their) father the devil” (Jn. 8: 44).
A physically blind man will not let another physically blind man lead them. But, surprisingly, a spiritually blind person will let another spiritually blind person lead them. We know our religious leaders are blind if they are leading us into deeper darkness and away from the light of God’s Word (KJV).
