Matthew chapter seven. We are
going to continue our study through Matthew, and we're gonna begin
this last chapter of what is referred to as our Lord's Sermon
on the Mount. Matthew five, six, and seven
is the Sermon on the Mount. And if the Lord is willing, we're
gonna be here all day today. We'll be in Matthew chapter seven
all day today. So let's read what will be our
Bible study, which is verses one to five. Matthew 7, verse
one says, judge not that you be not judged. For with what
judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what measure
you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say
to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and
behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye, And then shalt thou seek
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Now
a mote, that word means twig, straw, splinter. And a beam means
beam, it means a timber. And we know this portion of scripture
well. We know this very well. But let
me point us to Christ in it first before we get into what our Lord
is saying to us here. Let me point us to Christ and
then we'll see what he is saying to us because of that. Verse
one says, judge not that you be not judged. The one who is
saying this, this is our Lord, Christ himself, saying this. He is saying this on the authority
of being both the judge and the judged. All right, he is saying
this on that authority. Christ, who is God, There is
one God, you know, we think of the father, the son, and the
spirit. There is one God and Christ who is God judged us on
the cross of Calvary. That was our judgment in him. You know, everybody here's we're
going to stand before the judgment. Well, for all of God's people
there, it was, that was the judgment and we didn't make it. Didn't
hold up. We died. That was our judgment. We were judged in Him. All right,
so Christ was the judge who judged us, and Christ was judged for
us. There on the cross of Calvary,
He judged our sin, and He was judged in our sin. With the judgment
He judged, He was judged with it. Verse two says, for with
what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. With the judgment
he judged with, the very judgment, the judgment of God came down.
Think about that. The judgment of God came down. There's only one God. And with the judgment that he
judged with, he himself was judged with his own judgment. He made himself to be judged.
That's an amazing thing. You know, Galatians 4 says, when
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son
himself. And he made himself to be made
of a woman. God sent forth his son made of
a woman. And think about this, the one
who made woman made himself to be made of a woman. And Galatians goes on to say,
made under the law, the one who made the law. made himself to
be under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And verse two goes on to say,
with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you. Again,
the measure that God met his people with for their sin, the
measure of wrath, the measure of judgment, the measure of punishment,
that very measure was given to Christ. given to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The sin was given to Christ and
the measure for that sin was given to Christ. And because
of that, because he took our judgment
for us and took our measure for us, because of that, this is
now what he has to say to us concerning each other. Verse
one, he says, judge not that you be not judged. For with what
judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what measure
you may, it shall be measured to you again. Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died. Honestly,
honestly, you, you think about the fact that if the spotless,
Holy God himself can and has forgiven us our sin,
then who am I to hold on to a sin that God Almighty has forgiven?
Honestly. Honestly, he said, who is he
that condemneth? It's Christ that died. And he's
saying, if I've already brought judgment down on one of my own
for that sin, Don't bring another one down on him. Verse three,
he said, and why behold us thou the moat that is in thy brother's
eye. He's saying, why would you even feel the need to do that
anyway? Consider us not the beam that's
in thine own eye, or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let
me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine
own eye. Thou hypocrite. Who's he talking
to right there? Gabe Stoniker. First, cast out the beam out
of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out
the mote out of thy brother's eye. Now I want us to see three
things from these five verses. Number one, why our Lord said
that. And number two, what that means. What that means. As everybody
says, judge not. Number three, our reality in
it, okay? Why our Lord said that, what
that means, our reality in it. Number one, why did our Lord
say that? Why did he tell us to not make
judgments? The answer is, here it is, it's
because he's the judge and we're not. Look with me if you would at
John 5. John 5, verse 22, this is just
a, this is an amazing verse. John 5, 22, it says, for the
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the
Son. All judgment. The Father has
deferred all judgment to the Son. Who am I? Who am I? If the father has deferred
all of his judgment to the son, who am I? Turn with me to Romans
14. Romans 14 verse three says, let
not him that eateth despise him that eateth not, and let not
him which eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath received
him. Who art thou that judgest another
man's servant? He's saying, we belong to God. We're God's property. And he
said, who art thou that judges another man's servant to his
own master, he standeth or falleth. And down in verse 10, he said,
but why does thou judge thy brother? Or why does thou sit at not thy
brother? For we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live,
saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall
confess to God. So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one
another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling
block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. So why
did our Lord say, judge not, It's because He's the judge and
we're not. He's the judge, we're not. Hebrews
10 verse 30 says, we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth
unto me. I will recompense, saith the
Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge
his people. The Lord shall judge his people.
He's the judge, not us. That's the first thing, all right?
The second thing is this. What does that mean? What does that mean? Judge not. Well, now judge not. Don't judge. What does that mean? Turn with
me to first Corinthians chapter six. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 1 says, dare any of you having a matter
against another go to law before the unjust and not before the
saints? Do you not know that the saints
shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged
by you, Are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye
not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain
to this life? If then you have judgments of
things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least
esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it
so that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall
be able to judge between his brethren." Did he just say that
we ought to judge, make judgments between our brethren? Yes, he
did. Is this inspired of the Apostle
Paul or is it inspired of God? God. No prophecy of the scripture
is of any private interpretation and no scripture contradicts
another scripture. The Lord and his apostle are
saying the exact same thing. All right, here's our question.
What are they saying? What are they saying? What does
judge not and then judge? All right, what does this mean? Here's what it means. Every judgment
that needs to be made has already been made. Inside the pages of God's holy
book, inside the Bible, inside the scriptures, we have every
judgment that God was pleased to give a judgment on. If he
wanted to give twice as many judgments, he would have made
this book twice as big. We have every judgment that he
was pleased to give a judgment on. Stick with these alone. Stick with these alone. We must hold to his judgments
and we must not throw his judgments out the window. We must not. But we must only hold to His
judgments and we must not try to add any of our own to them. Our Lord said, if any man adds
anything to this book, this is how a believer can judge
and judge not. If a believer passes along God's
judgment on something and not his own, then that believer is
passing along God's judgment and not his own. I'm gonna repeat
that. If a believer is passing along
God's judgment and not his own, then that believer is passing
along God's judgment and not his own. Our Lord living for us as the
perfect man. Our Lord was the perfect man,
the perfect man. He gave us the example of this.
Look with me if you would at Luke chapter 12. Luke 12 verse 13 it says, And one of the company said unto
him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance
with me. We got this inheritance and he's
not giving me my half. I guess everything was left to
him and I'm owed it and this and that. And he said, speak
to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me. And
this is how the Lord answered him. He said unto him, man, who
made me a judge or a divider over you? That was his answer. Now from the scripture, we know
that Christ is the judge and the divider. He is. But as the perfect man, what
he's saying is, if a judgment on that needs to be made, it'll
be in God's word. We have God's word on these things.
If a judgment needs to be made, it will be in God's word. If
God has not made a judgment on a particular matter in his word,
a judgment does not need to be made. When our Lord said, judge
not, what he was saying was, leave all judgment in God's hands
and don't add any of your own judgments to them. And when the
apostle Paul said, go to your brethren when judgments need
to be made, what he was saying was, they are the ones who will
pass along God's judgments to you and they won't add their
own to them. I wanna give you an example illustration
of this, okay? I'm gonna give you an example.
God's Word says much about a lot of things, and I'm gonna pick
one. I've picked fornication. We know what fornication is.
A man and a woman coming together, being together, especially taking
it as far as living together before the covenant of marriage. If I was doing that, all right,
I'll put myself in that position. If I was doing that and someone
came to me and said, you need to stop this. This is a smack in the face of
God almighty. This is right in the presence
and in the face of God almighty. This is bringing reproach on
his covenant. That's what this is. It is literally
spitting on his covenant. It's becoming very accepted.
It's becoming watered down and accepted. It's leaking into everybody
everywhere. Oh, well, everybody's doing it.
It is spitting on God's covenant. That's what it is. God gave the covenant of marriage
as a representation of the covenant of unity and oneness that He
made with His bride, for His bride. And for us to come together
with no regard to that covenant is for us to spit on God's covenant.
I don't need that. I don't need God's covenant.
All right, for somebody to say that to me, to come up to me
and say that to me, and for my response to be, well now, judge
not. You shouldn't judge. You know,
2 Corinthians 2.16 says, let no man judge you. That's what
it says, let no man judge you. If that's my response, then that
brother needs to say to me, I'm not. God is. That's what he needs to say to
me. I didn't make that judgment. God did. It's not mine. It's his. If that brother loves me, he
will tell me you're going to bring heartache and you're going
to bring chastisement on yourself and on the gospel. By just blatantly disregarding
God's judgment on this, God made a judgment. We must throw all of our judgments
out the window, but we must not dare throw one of God's judgments
out the window. Can you imagine God taking the
time, if you want to say it that way, to write His judgments down
and give them to us, and we just say, ah, throw that out the window.
God forbid. God forbid. We're not just gonna turn a blind
eye to what he has to say and ignorantly just continue in our
blasphemy and sin against him. That's not what judge not means,
not at all. But what it does mean is leave
all the judgment in the hands of God. And don't make up your
own judgments and try to add them to those. And that's what
Gabe Stoniker does. Honestly, that's what my flesh
does, you know. Well, this is what I think. Well,
who am I? Our judgments don't carry any
weight. They are usually wrong, and they do more harm than good.
Really. And that's our reality of what
our Lord is saying in our text, all right? That's the third thing
I want us to see. Go back to Matthew 7. Bringing our own judgments
only brings judgment to us. That's all that it brings. That's
all that it brings. Every judgment of our own that
we meet people with, all that will come from it is that very
same judgment will be met to us. If we see the faults in people,
the Lord will make it so that they see the faults in us. It's
just so. And man, the faults that we have.
Oh, the faults that I have. I say this before everybody.
Number one, I want everybody to know that these things are
not easy. So difficult to stand up here
and say this to you. I really want all y'all to leave
and I'll just speak and then go sit in the pew and speak and
then go sit in the pew. I'm talking to myself. Really,
I'm talking to myself. But I need to hear this. I need
to know this. I need to understand this. So
many faults. And you know, there's so many,
we don't need to go looking for judgments in other people. I got so many right here. I have
so many right here. If I wanna make judgments on
things, I got so many just right inside here. Verse three, go
back with me if you would to Matthew 7. Verse 3 says, why
beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt
thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine
eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Again, I'm speaking
to myself, and I mean this right now, I'm speaking to myself.
This is a check for me, for Gabe Stoniker only. When Gabe Stoniker
thinks I have the moat and you have the beam, I have the beam
and you have the moat. And if I sincerely desire to
have a moat rather than a beam, I need to consider the fact that
I'm the one with the beam. Right? That's what I need to
do. Verse five, thou hypocrite, first
cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou
seek clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye.
Romans chapter one, Paul told the Gentiles, everything about
you is wrong, sinful and wrong. Romans chapter two, Paul told
the Jews, why are you judging the Gentiles? You do the exact
same thing they do. And it's worse for you because
you have the law. There's no excuse for you. But
that's how it is for all of us. That's how it is for me, and
that's how it is for all of us. It's just so true. Whatever we
judge somebody else for, I am doing the exact same thing. I'm doing the exact same thing.
So as the Lord's people, believers of Him, believers of His Word,
He gives us faith to believe this. Through His Word, He'll
come and say, Thou art the man. And He'll give us faith to believe
Him. I believe you. Through His Word, as He's instructed
us to do in His Word, let's ask Him to give us the ability to
do this. But let's, according to His instruction,
esteem each other better and higher than we esteem ourselves.
That is the thing to do. Let's take the attitude, truly
believing in our hearts. I have the beam. My brother has
the splinter. If a judgment needs to be made
on my beam or his splinter, let's search the scriptures for it
together. And if a judgment's in here,
the judgment will stand. If not, then let's leave it in
the Lord's hands and wait on Him. The judge of the earth shall
do right. That's what the scripture says,
and it's so. He will. The judge of the earth shall
do right. If the Lord will bring us to
that place and let us stay right there, there's peace in that. There's peace there. The judge
of the earth shall do right. So may the Lord teach me that. May he teach all of us that.
All right, you're dismissed.