I preach or teach this because
I'm a master of it. Far from that. I teach it because necessity
is laid upon me. Because here it is. I've got to deal with it. I'm
less than the least. I mean that. And I need this
more than anybody here. If I could, I'd probably avoid
it because there are many scriptures I would avoid dealing with because
I feel such my own guilt and hypocrisy. But may we all feel
that way when we hear it. That our Lord is talking to His
disciples and He says to them, you're a hypocrite. Isn't it? Oh boy, here we go. Verses 1
and 2. Judge not. that you be not judged. For with
what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what
measure you lead, or whatever you give out, is what's going
to be given to you. My, my. Now, generally, religious people
use this phrase a lot, don't they, when you start renouncing
false religion and denouncing error and calling false prophets
false prophets or anything. Say anything to denounce anything
or anyone, they'll say, Judge not. The Lord's not saying that. He's not saying that. He says in verse 6, Don't give
that which is holy unto dogs. Don't cast your pearl before
swine. Well, you've got to determine And he's talking about people,
isn't he? You've got to determine if someone's
a dog, don't you? A swine? You've got to make that
judgment. John 7, go over there. There
are judgments to be made. That means you've got to have some thought
about what's right and what's wrong. But he says it's got to be righteous
judgment. true judgment according to the
Word of God, according to the truth, not by anything we think
or man's standards. Look at John 7, verse 24. Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment. So you see, our Lord is not saying
that you're not to make any kind of judgment whatsoever, but it
better be righteous. And that means so much. Righteous
judgment is at the mouth of two or three witnesses. It's got
to be absolutely established by two or three witnesses. The
Lord said that in the very beginning. You better be absolutely certain,
if you're going to make a judgment, that your judgment is according
to righteousness, and righteousness being with impartiality. without bias? My, my. Who would want to be a judge
anyway? Who is able to make those judgments? So it's safer, really,
to judge ourselves. Now, all right, look at our text. He says, Judge not that you be
not judged. He's talking about our brother,
because there is a A judgment to be made about what's true,
that is, the true gospel from the false, true doctrine from
heresy, true preachers from the false. 1 John 4 tells us that,
doesn't it? Try the Spirit. Try them. We
must judge. A true church from a counterfeit,
there is a judgment to be made. But it should not be according
to outward appearance, according to our eye, according to our
first impression. or even according to what we
hear, we might have heard it wrong, and so on and so forth. So he does not prohibit any judgment,
but judging righteous judgment. Here he's talking about trying,
sentencing, and executing your brother. Being a judge. That's what a judge does. I hereby
find you guilty, and I sentence you to whatever. Case dismissed. I'm the final say on this matter.
Oh, don't do that. Don't do that. We need our, well, Paul said
this, judge nothing before the time. Because in the end, it
might turn out completely different. We might have been wrong all
along about them and ourselves. Judge, righteous judgment. Don't
judge your brother. Don't do it with the naked eye,
either, or the naked ear. Judging our brother. He tells
us not to be the judge of our brother, that is, his final judge,
but rather he stands or falls before the Lord. And I am so
glad about that. Aren't you? One time, David was
guilty of something and the Lord offered him a couple of choices.
He said, I'm going to do this, let you fall into the hands of
men and let them deal with your sickness and all that. And David
said, don't let me fall into the hands of man. I'd rather
fall into the hands of you because you're merciful. So it tells
us not to judge and condemn and try and sentence and execute
But for that matter, be critical. When we're critical, that makes
us a person to judge. And we're critical that we should
have compassion. And I want to quote this more
than once throughout this message. If we would judge ourselves.
It's one of the strongest Scriptures I know in all of God's Word.
It's just striking. It ought to convince us all. 1 Corinthians 11, 31. We need
to write that down and memorize it. If we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. Now, I don't want to be judged.
I don't want God, who is the judge of all, who sees all, knows
all about me, I don't want him to try, sentence, and execute
me, because he could. But he doesn't. And here's the
wonder. is He judged His perfectly innocent
and holy Son in my place. Now, my, my. My, my. And so this is why His soul comes
down so hard on us not judging a brother, because He says, I'm
not judging you, I'm forgiving you. I expect you to do the same. You should have compassion like
He did, patience like He did, dealing with us. Long-suffering
like He is with us. Mine, mine. And it ain't over
yet, what we're going to do to Him. Understanding like He does. Understanding one another's frame
like He does us. And in a spirit of meekness,
dealing with every son of Adam, not just our brethren, but especially,
He says, do good unto all men, but especially them of the household
of faith. Love is brethren, He said. So he says, Judge not that ye
be not judged. Verse 2, For with what judgment
you judge, you shall be judged. The measure you meet, it shall
be measured to you again. God will use the same standard
for you that you use upon others, that we use upon others. We say,
Well, I don't like that person. I don't like what how they live
or so forth. All right. God says, let's closely
examine you. Well, he or she shouldn't be
doing that. All right. God says, let's just see what
you're doing. All right. Let's just open it
up for close scrutiny. I'm going to judge you. And,
you know, most of our criticism of people is pride and self-righteousness. I heard a brother I say that
one time in Righteous Judgment. Another brother was being critical
of the way he did things, and he said to him finally, he said,
you know, criticism is a fine line between constructive criticism
and self-righteousness. It means often you've got it
wrong and I've got it right. And if you were more like me,
you wouldn't be doing that. We're not the judge, are we?
We don't want people being like us. If we were really honest,
we would say, I don't want you being like me. And we should not want people
to deal with us the way we deal with them. I've heard the statement, I've
even made the statement before, that you can love somebody and
not like them. Well, generally, what that means is that I don't
like the way they are. I like the way I am. If they
were more like me, I'd like them more. Right? I'm guilty. If they would do things like
we do, we'd get along. I'd like them better. So hold
on now. If we would judge ourselves,
if we'd look within ourselves, We would find nothing to like
about ourselves. Nothing. Job finally said to him. Job
was justifying himself. He got to the point where he
was so justifying himself. He was wrongly condemned by his
friend that he got so indignant that he began to justify himself
and he said, I'll order my cause before God. And that's when God
said, hold on now, who is this? And then Job said, oh, I hate
myself. And that's when he started praying
for his friends. That's when they started praying
for him. That's when they all started praying. Oh, man, we
forgot whose sight we were in when we were saying all that
we were saying. When we were saying, I'm right and he's wrong,
and he's wrong and I'm right, and God says, you're all wrong. You're all wrong. I'm right. Now, everybody, take
your place before me as guilty, hell-deserving, no-good sinners. And you listen to me. Judge not,
or you're going to be judged. You point this back at me, okay?
With the same measure you meet, it will be meted to you mercy.
Mercy. My greatest need is mercy. It's of the Lord's mercy that
every one of us in here are not consumed by His anger, by His
wrath. It's of the Lord's mercy. Thank
God His compassions, they fail not. His mercy is new every morning. Thank God He's merciful. Thank God He's not like me. Thank
God he's God and not a man. And our Lord said, blessed are
the merciful, they shall obtain mercy. You see, with the merciful,
he'll show himself merciful. Well, I need mercy. My greatest
need is mercy, so how am I going to get it? You say, well, with
the merciful, I'll show mercy. I need to learn something then,
don't I? With the upright, he'll show himself upright, straightforward,
truthful, open, honest. Transparent. With the pure, He'll
show Himself pure. Pure love, pure mercy, true heart. With the forward, He'll show
Himself forward. With the perverse, with the cantankerous,
with the contrary, He'll show Himself contrary, against you. Look at Matthew 18. You know,
it's better for us to err on the side of mercy than it is
judgment. It would be better to judge wrongly on the side of
forgiveness than it would on the side of condemnation. Matthew
18, because our Lord said this, talking about his little ones, weak ones, weak
believers. Verse 6, Who so shall offend
one of these little ones which believe in me? It were better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he
were drowned in the depth of the sea. Oh, boy, how often have I offended
a brother. How often have you? It's of the
Lord's mercy that we're all not consumed in it, beginning with
me. All right, look at our text. He says, verse 3, Why beholdest
thou the moat? That's a splinter, a small piece
of wood, in your brother's eye, but considerest not that the
beam that is in thine own eye. Now, who's he talking to? He's
talking to Peter, James, John, Thomas, Bartholomew. He's talking
to his disciples. There weren't any finer people
on earth at this time. The Lord went on to say, you're
the salt of the earth. He said that before. You're the
salt of the earth. Of whom the world's not worthy. But buddy,
to a man, they better say of themselves, unworthy. I'm not worthy." That's what
Paul said. Paul was the greatest because
he was the greatest servant. Paul was the greatest of the
apostles because he said, I'm less than a leader. Paul was
used more by the Lord because he had such a spirit and attitude
of the Lord, meekness and lowliness. He said, I'm not fit to be Paul's
disciple. And he suffered more wrong than
anybody. He was defrauded more than anybody
else. The Lord used him most. He was most like him. He said,
why do you behold the moat in your brother's eye, but consider
not that you have a log in your own eye? The little fault we
see in our brother's character is nothing compared to our glaring
faults, if we know ourselves. And as I said, he's talking to
his disciples, he's talking to us, and here's what he's saying. If all we can see is our brother's
fault, that means we have so much fault
in ourselves. We're blind to our own fault.
If all we can see, we're blind to our own fault. If all we can
see is what's wrong with him or her, we have a big, huge beam
in our eye called self-righteousness. And God hates that worse than
anything. And here's the scripture that
proves that. He said to the self-righteous
Pharisee, the harlots and the publicans are going to enter
heaven before you do. He said, the judgment, the punishment
of those in hell will be less severe than you. Can a believer get in a bad way
and in fact have a bad heart? Ask David. You can't essentially
have a bad heart, or it gives a new heart. But we can get in
such a root of bitterness towards someone that it so completely
controls us that we can't see or hear anything good in them
at all. or anything wrong with us. That's
how bad we can get. We can't see anything but bad
in them or anything wrong with us. Now, who's wrong? We've got
a beam in our eye. The Lord said to Simon Peter,
who'd gotten a bad wave, and there's a difference between
regeneration and conversion. We all go through things where
we need times, bad, where our heart's not right, where we need
to be converted. And the Lord said to Peter, when
thou art converted, here's what you're going to do. You're going
to strengthen your brethren. Peter said, these fellows may
leave you, but not me. Yeah, these fellows, look at
them, but now not me. The Lord put him through the
worst period of his life, didn't He? And broke him. And He said, Now. Now who's the best man? Now strengthen
your brethren. Strengthen your brethren. And
they are converted. We're told things like this,
to love as brethren. You know, a brother, two brothers,
or two sisters for that matter. Do a lot of things to one another
over the years, don't they? My middle brother used to absolutely
torment me. Of course, I didn't do anything
wrong. I was complete. I was a mama's
baby. They just picked on me constantly. Far be it from me. I was telling
somebody yesterday that my mother would I'd say to somebody, I
hope he's not running with the wrong crowd. And they'd say to
her, he is the wrong crowd. But my brothers used to torment
me. One of them anyway, my oldest
brother, eight years older than me, and he was just too old.
My other brother was so close in age that there was a sibling
rivalry and all that. We tormented each other. He tormented
me. I tormented my sister, because
I could. But anyway, no matter what we
did to one another, no matter what we said to one another,
no matter what we went through, to get so mad, to fight mad,
and literally fight, we'd always end up... we were always going
to be brothers. And to this day, I've told you
that, that we went through great troubles, but for the life of
me, I can't really pinpoint or remember any certain incidents. I've forgotten them all. Love is brethren. Love is brethren. The Lord says things like this,
blessed are the peacemakers, not peacetakers. That's hard enough, really, to
take overtures of peace when you think you've been offended.
But he said, here's the child of God. Here's the children of
God's peacemaker. The one who's making peace. The
one who says, I've got to have peace. I've got to have peace
with you. I can't stand it if I don't. That's the child of God. Love
beareth all things. That means covereth everything.
Just don't bring it up again. Love overcometh the multitude
of sin. Thank God. Here in His love, He has covered
all of our sin. All of them. If not, if we do
not, we either don't love at all or we need converting. And
it's a painful lesson. Verse 4. He said, How will you
say then if you don't see the beam in your own eye? How will
you say to your brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine
eye, and behold, a beam is thine own eye. Here, let me help you
when you need help. Let me show you when we're blind
to ourselves. Let me show you what's wrong
with you when we're blind to ourselves. Can't be done. Now,
here's the key. Here's the key. And there are
really no words of comfort here. See how difficult this is to
deal with. Here's the key. If we look to
Christ, if we look at our Lord Jesus Christ, in His light we
see. Only in His light will we see
our darkness. Only in His love will we see
our lack of it. They comparing themselves with
themselves are not wise, but comparing ourselves with the
Lord Jesus Christ now, We'll condemn ourselves. We'll judge
ourselves. Only in light of His glory will
we be ashamed of ourselves. And His glory is His mercy, His
grace, His love. Only in light of His purpose,
seeing His purpose in coming to this earth to save a rotten,
no good son of Adam like me, He came to whine the world when
He come for the likes of me. Only then will we see And that
fellow is not as bad as I am. Surely he's worth forgiving. The Lord would die for a rotten
wretch like me. How could I condemn my brother
for such a minor offense? And so the Lord says, get the
beam out of your own eye before you try to help your brother
with his slight faults. And how do you do that? I just
told you. I looked to him. Verse 5, he says, Thou hypocrite. Who's he talking to? James and John. John, the beloved
disciple. James. Boy, oh boy. There were times when they got
fighting mad at each other. You know that? One time, James
and John's mother came and said to the Lord, Grant that my sons
be on your right hand and on your left hand. And the other
disciples got so mad. Apparently, those boys liked
it. That's right, Mama. Yeah, I belong here and he belongs
there. And the other disciples got so indignant against them,
fighting mad against them. How did the Lord straighten that
out? He had to convict them all. He had to show them all. Thou
hypocrite. Hypocrite means saying and not
doing. Hypocrite means knowing and not
doing. Hypocrite means judging and not seeing your own need
of judgment. And this is an accurate description
of us all as hypocrites. If we don't allow things in others
that we do in ourselves, we are hypocrites. If we won't tolerate even little
things in others when we are quick to justify and forgive
ourselves for major offenses, we are hypocrites. And, you know,
modern psychology says you need to forgive yourself. Man, that's
my whole problem. That's my whole problem. I've
been doing that all my life. I need to quit forgiving myself.
I need to judge myself. And that way and that way only
will I forgive my brother. Hypocrite. I love what that one A believer
said to a fellow who said, I don't come down there. I don't come
down to that church because there's too many hypocrites. They're
all a bunch of hypocrites. And the fellow said, oh, come on
down. There's room for one more. We demand quick and complete
repentance and apologies from our brother when we're so slow
to admit to being wrong and even slower to say, I'm sorry. Hypocrite. Whoever listens to this and doesn't
apply it to themselves, starting with me, is a hypocrite. He said, Only then will you see
clearly to cast out the moat that's in your brother's eye.
Only then will you see clearly it's just a little fault. And
we that are spiritual are to bear the faults. of our brethren,
to a brother be overtaken in a fault, you that are spiritual,
restore such a want in the spirit of meekness, considering thine
own self, he said. Who needs this? Raise your hand. Ah, boy. If we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. And I'll tell you this, it's
true too, if we would judge ourselves, we probably won't judge our brother. That's just the way it will be.
We judge ourselves. Lord, I don't want judged, I
want mercy. Then forgive as I have forgiven
you. Thank you very much.