Alright brethren, let's go to
John chapter 7. John chapter 7. Thank you to
everybody that was able to help yesterday. John chapter 7. Verse 14, the Lord says, or it
says, Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into
the temple and talked. And the Jews marveled, saying,
how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus answered
them and said, my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
If any man will do his will, if any man is willing to do the
Father's will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God or I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh
his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the
same is true, and there's no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law,
and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill
me? The people answered and said,
Thou hast a devil, who goeth about to kill thee? Jesus answered
and said unto them, I've done one work, and you all marvel.
Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it's
of Moses, but because it's of the fathers. And you on the Sabbath
day circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath day receives
circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken, are
you angry at me because I've made a man every whit hole on
the Sabbath day? Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment. Let's ask the Lord to bless the
Word. Our Holy Father, our righteous,
sovereign God, we ask you to draw us to Christ now in our
heart. Make us truly hear Him speak
and make us hear what He says of us in ourselves and what He
says of us in Christ. And Lord, give us true discernment. We ask you be our teacher. Forgive
us, Lord, our sins and our unbelief. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Now, the Pharisees here were
judging by appearance. Our Lord said, judge not according
to the appearance. Now I don't think that the Pharisee
rulers, when they were back at Bethesda, by the pool of Bethesda,
I don't think they saw the Lord heal the man. And I don't think
they even knew the man. They just looked up, and this
crowd of people, on that feast day, and here comes a man walking,
carrying his bed mat, carrying his bed roll. And judging by
appearance, judging by the letter of the law, they judged that
to be breaking the Sabbath day because Jeremiah 17, 21 said,
carry no burden on the Sabbath day. When they heard who told
the man to carry his bed mat, they judged the Lord to be just
a man who had himself broken the Sabbath day and had told
another man to break it. And then when he told them, I
and my father were hitherto, we're one, they accused him of
blaspheming God. This is judging by the seeing
eye and the hearing ear, judging by appearance, judging by the
letter of the law. And they had a motive for doing
this. They were justifying themselves. They were trying to appear righteous
before men as those who had kept the law and they were trying
to exalt themselves by condemning others and putting the sin on
others. They were judging by appearance
and judging by appearance, get what they did, they accused the
law giver of breaking the law. They accused this one who is
the righteousness of the law of breaking the law. They accused
him who is God, who is one with the Father, of blaspheming his
own name. That's judging by appearance.
That's what happened. When the Apostle Paul was unregenerate
and in the Pharisees' religion, he judged by appearance. He said,
I was circumcised the eighth day. He said, as touching the
law, I was a Pharisee, touching the righteousness which is in
the law, blameless. But when God gave him spiritual
discernment to make him judge righteous judgment, he said when
the commandment came, sin revived and I died. I saw myself in the
true light that I'm a sinner and all myself, righteous self
and all my good deeds and everything I thought was life died. Well,
at the feast they judge by appearance. He comes to the feast The feast
was eight days, and about the middle of the feast, he stands
up in the temple and he starts preaching the gospel. And judging
by appearance, they saw only a man preaching in their temple
at their feast, and he was preaching when they had given him no authority
to preach. Righteous judgment looks there
and sees The Word, capital W, The Word preaching his word. Righteous judgment looks there
and sees God tabernacling among us. The word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. He had
the feast of tabernacles, which pictured him. He's the feast.
He's the end of that law, as well as all the law. That's what
righteous judgment sees. He's the one who makes his people
entirely whole and brings us into rest from all our works
for acceptance. He's our Sabbath. They glorify
themselves as judges rather than bow to Christ. And so Christ
says, judge not by appearance, judge righteous judgment. Now there's three things our
Lord shows us in this passage. And this is what he does when
he brings his child to judge righteous judgment. And he's
the one that does it. He gets the glory. We don't always
judge righteous judgment. Sometimes believers judge by
appearance. But when he brings you to judge
righteous judgment, he works these three things right here
in our heart. Here's the first thing. God makes
us willing to come to Christ and receive his word. He says
here in verse 17, if any man will do the Father's will, willing
to come to Christ, he shall know of the doctrine. Christ gives
discernment in the heart by the Spirit to know His doctrine.
He brings us to the end of ourselves. He brings us to Him and makes
us willing to truly hear Him speak. And here he gives light
to his word, he makes us hear him. And he makes us know, he
makes us know in our heart, he makes us truly discern righteous
judgment from him. He's made wisdom to us. This
is not just only in the first hour, though it is, but it's
all through our life, he keeps doing this. And when he does
it, he makes you know, doesn't he? He makes you know because
your heart burns within you. You have his spirit speaking
within you and you know it. You know it's him speaking. The
scripture tells us, Psalm 119, 130 says, the entrance of thy
words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto
the simple. That's who he's going to teach,
the simple. Those that have been made like
a child who just come I'm not knowing anything. I just want
Him to teach me. Teach me, Lord. Make me to know. Make me to know. Proverbs 2.6
said, the Lord giveth wisdom. Out of His mouth cometh knowledge
and understanding. And this is why we're told throughout
the scriptures, just like we're told in Proverbs 3.5, trust in
the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. We see the Pharisees give us
an example Leading to our own understanding, we can be very
wrong. And all thy ways acknowledge
Him, and He shall direct thy paths. So that's the first thing,
He's going to bring us to Him, to Him. And then secondly, Christ
is going to first make us judge our own selves, personally. He says here in verse 19, He
turns to them and he says, did not Moses give you the law? And
yet none of you keepeth the law. Why go you about to kill me?
The people answered and said, thou hast a devil. Who goes about
to kill thee? Now Christ is using righteous
judgment here. He is the righteous judge and
he's speaking righteous judgment. That none of those rulers and
none of the people gathered there at that feast who did not know
him, who were not born of him, he's saying none of you've kept
the law. None of you've kept the law. They were all guilty
and right then, the cause of what they felt towards Christ,
there was murder in their heart. And to be guilty of one law.
is to be guilty of the entire law of God. The paradox of legalism
is judging and condemning others, we condemn ourselves because we've never kept the
law of God. So how are we going to be made
to first consider this about ourselves? Christ is going to
speak in power. This is what's going to make
us really judge righteous judgment. He's going to speak in power
into the heart of his child and make us judge our own selves.
He's going to make us hear personally, none of you have kept the law.
And he looks on the heart. He knows the heart. He knows
what's in our nature. And he's speaking of murder in
the heart, enmity in the heart, sin in the heart. He knows it.
He knows it. He's gonna make us to remember
there's none righteous, no not one. There's all flesh is grass,
and that's including my own self, and that's what he's gonna remind
us of. If we're gonna judge righteous judgment, we're gonna have to
remember this first. The first aspect of judging righteous
judgment is to judge myself, the sinner. And he's gonna make
his child do it. The rulers were not willing to
come to Christ. And Christ didn't give them discernment.
They heard him speak this, but all they heard was this ear.
They didn't hear in the heart. And so they kept using the letter
of the law. They kept going back to Moses
and saying, but Moses said, here's what the letter of the law says.
They kept judging by appearance outwardly. By the hearing ear
and the seeing eye, they judged themselves righteous that way,
and they judged Christ and His disciples to be lawbreakers. They wanted judgment without
mercy, so Christ judged them without mercy. He turned to them
right here, and He said, you can't see, you're guilty. They could not confess their
own sin. They couldn't justify the Lord
in what He was speaking to them. They couldn't say, yes, Lord,
I am the sinner. Instead, they turned the spotlight
back on the Lord, back on the man He had healed, and on His
disciples, and said, you have a devil. Nobody's going about to kill
you. And just a little while, just a few verses later, the
people are going to admit, isn't this the one that they're going
about to kill? That's the flesh. That's our
sin nature. Deny and deflect. Deny and deflect. Righteous judgment begins at
the house of God. That's what the scripture says.
And if every child that's born of the spirit of God is the temple
of God. And that means it's going to
begin in my heart and in your heart. Individually, by the Lord. Christ makes his child first
judge that we ourselves, I am the sinner. I'm the sinner. One way Paul delighted in the
law of God was, he said, if it hadn't been for the law, I wouldn't
know my sin. This is how I know what I am. The wise man said, there's not
a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not. And Thomas
Bradford said, there's not a justified man on earth, not one that's
justified and loved and accepted of God that doeth good and sinneth
not. In some things we offend all
and in all things we offend some. Sin's mixed with everything.
God makes us judge righteous judgment first concerning our
own self. This is how he's gonna give the
fruit of meekness and make merciful. Judging our own self. That's
the only ones that are meek and merciful is those that judge
themselves to be absolutely the very least, to be the chief of
sinners. Remember our own need, that's
what he's gonna make us remember, our own need, and at the same
time, remember God's continual mercy. Listen to David, Psalm
143.1. He said, hear my prayer, O Lord,
give ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me,
and in thy righteousness. And he said this, and enter not
into judgment with thy servant. For in thy sight shall no man
living be justified. Listen to John Gill on this.
He says, though David is a servant, he knows he's an unprofitable
servant. His nature, his heart, his thoughts,
his words, his actions would not bear examining, nor stand
the test of the holy law of God, nor was he able to answer the
demands of divine justice in his own person. And therefore
he pleads for pardon and acceptance through Christ and his righteousness,
and he entreats that God would not proceed against him in a
judicial way, not now, nor hereafter. That's where he brings us, to
judge righteous judgment. I'm the sinner, I don't deserve
anything from the Lord, and I can't stand if he judges on the strict
letter of the law, I can't stand before him. I can't stand before
him. So first he gonna bring us to
Christ, then he's gonna make us judge our own self, I'm the
sinner. And here's the third thing he
does. He reminds us what Christ has done for us, personally. And this makes us to remember
what Christ has done for our brethren. He says in verse 21,
Jesus answered and said unto them, I've done one work and
you all marvel. He's talking about healing the
impotent man back there six, seven months ago. He said, Moses
therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it's of Moses, but
of the fathers. And he says in, You on the Sabbath
day circumcise a man, and if a man on the Sabbath day receives
circumcision that the law of Moses should not be broken, are
you angry at me because I've made a man every whit hole on
the Sabbath day?" It was not breaking the law to circumcise
a male child at eight days old on the Sabbath. That wasn't breaking
the law. They did it many times. They've
done it many times. But he's arguing from the lesser
to the greater here. He says, I did this one time.
You've done this many times. I've done this one time. But
he says here, I didn't just injure a male baby in one member of
his body to fulfill a law. He says, I took an impotent man,
who never walked for 38 years, and made him every whit hole
in his heart, spiritually, as well as in his body. I saved
a man. And you're condemning me for
saving a man. You want to kill me. So judging
by appearance, they didn't judge righteous judgment. They didn't
see the spiritual meaning of circumcision. They didn't hear
what the law said about him. They didn't understand Christ
is the Sabbath. Nothing that was going on did
they understand. They looked at circumcision as
a law that Moses gave that was just like the rest of the law.
And Paul tells them here, Moses is not the one who gave you circumcision.
It came from Abraham, the fathers. And God circumcised Abraham in
his heart. He regenerated him in his heart
by the Spirit, and it was 15 years later before he gave Abraham
the outward token of circumcision, and that was what it was, a sign,
a token of the righteousness of faith that God had given him
by circumcising him in the heart. And circumcision also pictures
what Christ did on the cross for his people when he took away
the filthy body of our sin by his own blood and his righteousness,
laying down his life for his people. And when he gives you
faith, when he has truly circumcised the heart and brought you to
faith in Christ, He brings us to repent from any goodness in
us, any righteousness in us, anything that we can do to make
ourselves accepted or stay in favor with God, and He brings
us to rest entirely in Christ our Sabbath. Let's look at this
in Colossians 2. There's many scriptures we could
go to, but we'll just look here in Colossians 2. Colossians 2 and verse 10. He says, you're complete in Christ, which
is the head of all principality and power. That's what he meant
when he said of this impotent man, I made him every way at
home. He's complete. This man's complete. And he says,
in whom also, speaking to believers, you're circumcised with a circumcision
made without hands. and putting off the body of the
sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with Him in
baptism. We were buried in that baptism.
He suffered on the cross that wrath of God coming down on Him
when He was buried on the cross. Wherein also you're risen with
Him through the faith of the operation of God who raised Him
from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins,
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he came to us dead when
we had no life in us. And he circumcised us in the
heart by the spirit. He said, he is hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his
cross. Having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over
them in it. That's when we're brought to rest in our Sabbath,
because he's given you rest from all the works of the law of trying
to make yourself righteous and holy before God. And he says,
let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect
of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath, which
are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. And
he says later down there, when men are doing that, they're not
holding the head. They're not beholding Christ
the head. It's from him that all the body, by joints and bands,
have nourishment ministered to us. and we're knit together and
we increase with the increase of God. That means we can't increase
unless God increases us. But it's from Christ our head,
that's who does it. And that's essentially what he
was doing with this impotent man. Christ took this impotent
man and made him whole outwardly, but he also circumcised his heart
and made him whole inwardly and brought him to rest in Christ
the Sabbath. He brought this man to the end
of everything that law typified, which is Christ, and made him
rest in Christ. And these Pharisees only saw
it with these eyes and heard it with these ears and didn't
enter into anything that had taken place. When God draws us
to Christ and He makes us judge righteous judgment, He makes
us see Christ has made us every whit hole. Every whit hole. You can't get more whole than
complete. That's what Christ has made His people. And He's
made our brethren every whit hole. If the Pharisees had known
this, if they had known this, they wouldn't have judged Christ,
they wouldn't have judged that impotent man. They would have
rejoiced and they'd have been merciful to sinners. Christ,
he continually reminds this, his children of this, makes us
hear this and make us remember this, that it's his righteousness
by which we're complete. And this is how we kept merciful,
we kept rejoicing in His faithfulness, in His righteousness, because
it's in Him that we're complete. This is how come He remembers
our sin no more. This is how come He says we're
accepted of God. This is how come He says that
there's no more condemnation to His people. It makes the believer
stricter in judging ourselves and lenient in judging others. That's the effect it had. It
didn't have the effect on the Pharisees. And it doesn't have
that effect on religious men. It's our nature to be harsh on
others and lenient on ourselves. And we'll do that if we're judging
by appearance. We'll condemn somebody else and
we'll pass by our own sin doing the same thing or our children's
But the Lord reverses that. He makes you more strict on yourself.
When he's really speaking to you and showing you this, he
makes you more strict on yourself and lean in on your brethren
and on other sinners. We are often judged by our parents,
brethren. We often do. And the seeing eye,
the hearing ear, but God's looking on the heart. And here's the
thing, we cannot see the heart in others. We can't see the heart
in others. We can't see when the Lord's working in the heart
of our brethren. We may appear to see what we
see is just sin, and it may be the Lord actually chastening
and breaking another, and we can't see what's going on in
his heart. We're very prone to make the wrong judgment if we
judge by appearance. But the Lord checks his child
by these three things. He always does. You know, you're
going to say things you shouldn't say, you know, and He's going to check you with
this. He's going to first bring you to Christ. He's going to
make you come to Christ. He's going to make you hear Christ
and bow to Christ, not just in the letter, but in spirit, with
righteous judgment, beholding Christ in all the shadows and
the types and going, deeper than just a letter. He's going to
make you hear Christ. And He's going to convict our
own heart and make us judge our own selves, saying, now remember,
you've never kept the law. This righteousness you have is
not of you. It's not of you. If God entered unbending judgment
of the law with us, none of us could stand. Not any of us. And then He's going to remind
you the great mercy He showed you in Christ. and how he's redeemed
his child and made you ever with whole and brought you to rest
in the Sabbath. And by this, he's humbling us from judging
by appearance. He humbles us and makes us behold
the beam in our own eye so we can be a help to others. This
is not a theory, this is what he does. It's what he does. And
then we use righteous judgment. How do you judge righteously?
Well, if a brother's fallen, what's our one weapon? We speak
of the righteousness of Christ. We speak of how Christ has come
and laid down His life for His people. I've got brethren that
come and talk to you and no matter what it is they're going to talk
to you about before they get to whatever it is they came to
talk about, they're going to spend 10 or 15 minutes talking
about Christ and what He's done for us. That's our one weapon
all the time. All the time. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation because why? Because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. There's where we see righteousness,
Christ our righteousness. And hearing of Christ laying
down his life for you humbles us in the heart. It makes it
easier to hear reproof. It makes it easier to hear admonition. I used to try to do this with
my children. Just sit down and explain to
them first why they're in trouble and explain the gospel to them. When God grants repentance then,
And one is ask mercy and forgiveness. The Lord says you give it to
him immediately. Immediately. Why? That's what
he does to us. That's what he does to us. In fact, the Lord said, if your
brother offends you seven times in a day, and seven times repents
and comes and asks forgiveness, forgive him seven times. Now
I'm going to be honest with you, if my brother sinned against
me seven times in a day, I'm going to probably start judging
by appearance. And in my self-righteous heart, I'm going to uproot the
wheat and leave the pears. That's what I'm going to do.
That's why when the Lord said that, you know what the disciples
said? As soon as he said, if he offends
you seven times in a day and seven times repents and asks
forgiveness, give it to him. You know what the next word they
said was? Lord, increase our faith. It's gonna take you making me
judge righteous judgment. Righteous judgment knows we need
mercy from God. All the time, every day. And
the reason the Lord told Peter, judge without limit, is because,
or have mercy without limit, forgive without limit, is because
that's how the Lord forgives us. Constantly. Constantly. When the Pharisees rejected Christ,
and they rejected that man, they had a motive for doing it. They
had a motive for doing it. They wasn't going to bow to Christ.
He was not going to have that man reign over them. They were
trying to get away from Him. They were trying to get away
from the Gospel. They were not going to have Him be the authority. They wanted to justify themselves.
And Christ used righteous judgment. He discerned that. He said, there
is murder in your heart. Now when they rejected Him and
they rejected His disciples and there was no repentance, It was
the unrepentant and hard-hearted that He left alone. That He left
alone. But you know, even then, our
Lord, just think of Him sitting here teaching them this when
He knows in their heart they hate Him and want to kill Him.
And He's still teaching them this. There's others there He's
wanting to hear this. And even to the end, he said
to them, I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens,
and you would not come to me. But for brethren that turn to
Christ, righteous judgment receives one another without doubting,
without disputing. Read Romans 14. We can be very
wrong judging by appearance, but righteous judgment receives
brethren without doubting or disputing, knowing, oh, I know
they're sinners, because I know I am. But I know what mercy and
grace has done for me, and that the only righteousness I have
is Christ. How can I not turn them to Christ, help restore
them, and be merciful and forgiven, and remember it no more like
Christ did mine, like God does me for Christ's sake? There was
a difference in Ham and his brothers. Ham didn't love his father and
Ham didn't love his brothers. He went outside and exposed his
father because he didn't love any of them. What he did by that
was put a huge burden on his brethren. Tremendous burden on
his brethren. And his brethren loved their
father and they loved Ham. How so? They showed him what
love is. They turned their back on their
father's nakedness. Wouldn't even look on him. Wouldn't
look on him. Sat in there, passed out. And
they walked backwards with a blanket and they covered him up. That's
what love does. That's what righteous judgment
does. Why did they do that? They knew
something about what they are. What they are. And God cursed
him and he blessed those boys. That's righteous judgment. Any
way you slice it, righteous judgment is to be merciful and gracious
because God's been merciful and gracious to us. It's the unrepentant
that refuses and says, no, no, I'm going to go to the letter
and I'm going to judge and I'm going to do it right. That's
going to be a bull in a china shop. That's who God says, that's who
he rejects. But vengeance belongs to Him.
He's sovereign. He's able. We believe that. Trust
Him. Rest in Him. Wait on Him. As
long as somebody wants to hear the gospel and they're not causing
trouble, be merciful. Just might be that's one of God's
elect and God will make them hear the gospel. All right, brethren,
let's stand together. Our great God and Father, we
thank you for this word. Thank you for your sovereign grace, sovereign
mercy. Thank you, Lord, that your salvation
is free to us by your grace, that you continually keep your
people, that your love is everlasting. There's no changeableness in
you, no variableness, neither changing, no turning, not even
a shadow. Lord, we're so fickle. We're
so easily turned. Lord, keep us looking to Christ.
Keep us resting in Him and hearing His voice, knowing what we are
in ourselves and in Him. Lord, keep us judging righteous
judgment. especially concerning our own
selves, concerning Christ, concerning one another. Forgive us our sins,
Lord. Help us to forgive and be merciful
and be a help to one another. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.