Matthew seven verses one to. Judge not. That you be not judged. Or with what judgment you judge. You shall be judged. And with
what measure you meet. It shall be measured to you again. Now, every one of us have heard
this scripture. Used by someone. Rather abused by someone, usually. It is the response of some religious
person. When we say something critical. About a. Denomination or preacher
or something. And people quickly say judge
not. You've heard it. And what that
is though generally is the ignorant response of some. Cowardly religionist who has
absolutely no real doctrinal convictions. Nor believes in
any absolute truth. Or dogma. but only holds to a
silly, sentimental, perverted belief that we're to love, tolerate
and receive anything and everyone that goes by the name of God
or religion or Christ. And all under the cloak of love,
we're supposed to love. Well, we are supposed to love,
but the Lord here, there are two things we need to consider
to understand this verse, OK? Number one, the Lord does not
prohibit judging everything or anyone or everyone without exception. The Lord does not prohibit judging.
Look at verse 6. People would just read on. The
Lord says, Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast
ye your pearls before swine. Well, how are we supposed to
know who are dogs and who are swine without judging? Look down at verse 15. Beware
of false prophets. How are we supposed to know unless
we judge them? So in context, the Lord is not
prohibiting the judgment of everything and anyone or everything without
exception. Go over to John chapter 7, John
7, in which he tells us to judge. John 7. Also Leviticus 19 is
where this began, but John 7. Verse twenty
four. John seven twenty four judge
not according to the appearance that is according to your naked
outward. But judge righteous judgment. So he there he commands that
we judge but the other rather judge righteous judgment. So he's not prohibiting any judgment
at all. In order to discern the true
gospel from the false, there has to be a judgment. In order
to distinguish the true true doctrine from false doctrine,
from heresy, we have to judge them in order to distinguish
a true preacher from a false. to discern of wolf and sheep
clothing with the judge in Dublin. It doesn't the scriptures say
and in first John four try the spirit was that may judge him
from the test. In order to distinguish true
church from counterfeit there must be righteous judgment. And
our Lord said there in John 7, judge not according to outward
appearance. The eye, our first impression,
is sometimes wrong. Generally wrong, I should say.
But he says, judge righteous judgment. OK, judge whatever
you hear, doctrine. Judge it by the glory of God.
Does it give God all the glory? Not some of the glory, but all
of the glory. Uh, judge doctrine, judge what you're hearing by,
uh, God's word, which is called the word of his grace is this
gospel. You're hearing all of grace,
part grace, part work. Judge, judge, judge, judge the
preacher by his message and by his methods and so forth. Judging,
put him to death, judge the church or so-called church by their
beliefs. What do they believe? What do
they do judge them by their methods. False churches methods are in
line with their false doctrine. Man centered man geared toward
man. And so on so forth but so so
he's but he says don't judge with a naked eye but with a naked
truth. All right, secondly, first, I
said there are two things we need to consider to understand
it. First, the Lord does not prohibit all judging. Secondly,
look at it again. Look at verse 3. He says, Why beholdest thou the
moat that is in thy brother's eye? What is he talking to? Remember, we have three things
we always need to consider when reading God's Word in order to
understand it. Number one, who is talking? Who
is talking? We can't go back to the book
of Job and just pull anything out and say, this is what God
said, because it could have been one of those fellows that was
talking to Job and God said about much of what they said. It wasn't
right. Remember that? So who's talking? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is
speaking. To whom is he talking? Whatever we read, we need to
know who's who's speaking to whom they're speaking like John
3. That's a good illustration, John
3. The Lord is speaking. Who is
he speaking to? A Pharisee named Nicodemus, a
self-righteous Jew. And he deals with that man about
the new birth and on and on. A bigoted, prejudiced, self-righteous
Jew said, God so loved the world. God just doesn't love Jews. See
who he's talking to? And the subject. Thirdly, what
is the subject? There's a general theme being
dealt with. Well, our Lord here is speaking to his disciples. All right? He's talking to us, believers, and he's giving commandments. Now, we are told, believers are
told, not to judge our brother. That is, set ourselves up as
their judge. We're not their judge. Got it. Got it. You're not to judge,
condemn, or even be critical of a fellow believer. Now that's
not talking about everyone that goes by the name of Christian. Because, you know, that would,
because everybody professes to be a Christian. There has to
be some righteous judgment. But even then, we should have
compassion and patience and understanding. Compassion upon and patience
and understanding with everyone. And do it, whatever judgment
or whatever correction or whatever of someone should be in a spirit
of meekness. In dealing with every son of
Adam, we need to consider our own selves. Remember the pit
from which we were digged and not be self-righteous. OK, so who's he talking to? The Lord is talking to his disciples
and he says, judge not, don't judge your brother. Don't judge
your brother, because he says in verse two, with what judgment
you judge, you shall be judged. Do we want to be judged with
the same judgment we judge? Do we want God to use the same
standards for us that we use upon others? If you're honest
with yourself. No way. We don't want to be as closely
scrutinized as we often do. We say he shouldn't be doing
that OK. Let's examine real closely, let's
get in private, let's expose publicly everything about you
privately and see what you shouldn't be doing or saying. No, we don't
want to be judged that way. Most of our criticism of our
brother, and now understand I'm dealing with this in context,
the Lord, we need this, I need this. I'm so thankful that I
don't see I don't see much, hardly any of this judgmental spirit
in you. I don't. I really don't. And I'm thankful. I thank God
for that. It's not us. It's God's grace,
restraining grace. I looked up, I was watching people
come in and greet one another, and it's obvious you love one
another. That will cover a multitude of sins. It's obvious. It's obvious, equally obvious
that you love this gospel and this gospel is only for sinners. It's obvious that you esteem
each of these, your brothers and sisters, at least as highly,
if not better than yourself. That's the grace of God. He gets
all the glory, doesn't he? And I'm thankful that this judgmental
spirit does not exist. Does not too much. I don't hear
everything. You know your own heart. But
the fact that we all make. It's in God's sovereign providence
that has come up at this very moment. So. I need this, you need this, we
need this. Perhaps someone needs it worse
than others. But most of our criticism of
our brothers and sisters is, you can label it one thing, it's
due to one thing, pride and self-righteousness. What we're saying when we're
critical of a brother or sister is, I've got it right, they've
got it wrong. If only they could be like me. That's right. You know, if only
they could be like that. He says in verse two, with the
judgment you judge, you'll be judged. And with what measure
you meet, it shall be measured to you again. That is, whatever
you dole out will be doled out to you. Or whatever you withhold
will be withheld from you. The Lord back there said with
the merciful, he'll show himself merciful. With the prover, he
shall himself prover. And so on and so forth. If we
really esteem ourselves the chief of sinners, we need mercy. We
see how we need mercy every morning, all day long. And we need it
to never cease. And so does our brother. Blessed
are the merciful, our Lord said. They shall obtain mercy. That
means those who are merciful to others, they themselves will
be shown great mercy. If we want mercy, we must be
merciful. With the upright, he says he'll
show himself upright. That is with the true, with the
honest. Martin used to say, a man who's honest with himself, an
honest person won't go to hell. With the same judgment we judge,
we'll be judged, the scripture says. But if we judge ourselves,
you remember when he said that? If we judge ourselves, we'll
not be judged. Because if we judge ourselves,
we'll see how far short we come. And we will not be so quick to
judge others. And here's the thing about it.
It's better to err on the side of mercy. In regards to anybody,
especially our brother. Better to err on the side of
mercy. What our Lord said about offending a little one that is
a believer. He said it'd be better to have
a millstone tied around your neck. and be drowned in the depth of
the sea. So it's better to err on the side of mercy. I said
this one time to a preacher who was so prone to want to exclude
everybody and not include anyone. He didn't want to. He didn't
want anyone to be called a believer who believes that such-and-such,
such-and-such, such-and-such was saved if they didn't just
absolutely dot every I and cross every T that he thought they
ought to dot and cross. In other words, he thought if
this person believed that that person was saved, then that person,
if that person was a little bit wrong in doctrine, if this person
believed they were saved, This man was setting himself
up as some kind of pope. It still goes on. And I told
him, I said, I would rather be guilty of including someone in
the kingdom of God that did not belong there than excluding someone
that did. Honestly, before God, we'd be
better off guilty of including someone in the kingdom who didn't
belong there than excluding someone who did. God is merciful to the merciful.
All right, he says in verse 3, Why beholdest thou the moat?
that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye." Our Lord is not without a sense
of humor there. I detect the humor in that. He said, why do you behold, you
see a splinter, a little speck in your brother's eye? But don't consider you got a
pole in your, a beam, a log in your arm. The little faults that
we see in our brother's character is nothing compared to our own,
if we know ourselves and consider ourselves, is nothing compared
to our glaring offenses, glaring weaknesses and so forth. And if we don't have the strength
to remove. To straighten out our own problem
and we don't. If we don't people I still got
problems with the same things I had problems with when I when
the Lord first revealed the truth as a young believer I still got
the same problem I can't get rid of the same thing looks like. Looks like I have total victory
over something. Well, if we don't have the strength
of character or the ability to straighten out our own lives
and own character flaws, he says in verse four, how are you going
to say to your brother? Will you say to your brother,
let me pull the moat out of your own eye when you, and behold
a beam in thine own eye? There we say, I know your problem
and you listen to me and I'll solve it for you. And we can't straighten our own
selves out. Now the scripture does say, the scripture does say, faithful
are the wounds of a friend. It does say that. And open rebuke is better than
secret love. Scripture does say that. Scripture does say we're able
to admonish one another, doesn't it? But we better have a lot
of wisdom and humility. And we better have a lot of discretion
and prudence. Scripture says the Lord is abounded
toward us in those times. Because most folks just can't
take criticism. Most folks don't want criticism,
and we need the wisdom to know that. And all our criticism,
if there is any, should be with Scripture. biblical, not our
own thoughts and opinions, and, well, this is the way I believe
ought to be done. No, no. And it ought to be very clear
in the Scripture, and we better have a perfect understanding
of it. Well, the Lord says, you know, straighten
up our own lives before we begin to try to straighten up someone
else's. And he means perfectly straight. He says, thou hypocrite. Who's
he talking to? He's not talking to a self-righteous
Pharisee, an unbeliever. He's talking to a believer. Can we ever rightly be called
a hypocrite? Absolutely. Absolutely. A hypocrite, you remember, a
hypocrite is someone who says something and does the opposite. Oh my we're so guilty. Beginning
with me. And this is we need to take this
title hypocrite we need to take it now. Believers let me let
me put it this way believers are not hypocrites in the sense
that they're not true and honest and that they're playing a game
that they're not. Believers aren't lawless people. Believers are not lawless people.
They're not. They're lawbreakers. They're
guilty of breaking the law, but that's not their practice. That's
not their tenor of life. That's not their general deportment.
That's not their character and attitude. They're obedient children
of God. They're disobedient at times.
They break the law at times. They're not lawless and disobedient.
You understand the difference? Believers are not hypocrites. Believers, true believers, are
the truest people on earth. You can trust a true believer. Ninety-eight percent. And you better be sure about
the two percent where you don't trust them. But that's the fact. Believers are truly the only
ones you can trust. Paul said this about some folks. He said, I have confidence in
you. Well, we're not supposed to have any confidence in the
flesh. You know what that's saying. Lean on it and trust it and everything
like that, but yet believers who have been created in the
image of Christ, they're trustworthy people. They're honest people.
You can believe them. They get it wrong, they act wrong
and all that, but that's just sin, you know, and that's not
their general character. And believers are hypocritical
at times. They're hypocritical. We're guilty
of not doing what we say, not doing what we say we believe,
of acting in a way contrary to what we say. We're all guilty
of that. I'll confess to being the most
hypocritical here at times. If I was a hypocrite, though,
you better not be listening to me. Right? I'm a scribe and a Pharisee
and a hypocrite. You better go find somebody else
to listen to. But we're all, at times, hypocritical. And we need that, don't we? We
need that admonition. We need that judgment from the
judge. He's the judge. He's the judge. And the way we're hypocritical
is we don't allow things in others that we do ourselves. We don't
tolerate even little things in others that we quickly justify
and forgive ourselves for. We can justify ourselves in anything. You know, we can justify ourselves
in anything when we turn right around and say, look at that,
can you believe that? We demand immediate, quick, complete
repentance and apologies from our brethren when it did not
take us a long time to say, to admit we're wrong and say we're
sorry. It shouldn't, but it does sometimes. We should be more ready to admit we're wrong
And we're ready to forgive. We need to be like our Lord,
don't we? Scripture says he's ready to pardon. Ready to pardon. So our Lord says, hypocrite,
that is, if we're judging our brethren. When we judge our brethren,
he says you're a hypocrite. First, cast the beam, get that
huge log out of your own eye. Take care of that huge glaring
fault and sin in your own life before you even make an attempt at removing.
And if you do, the fact is, you won't even touch theirs. Won't
even touch theirs. Except then you'll see clearly.
Cast the mote out of your brother's eye and you'll do it with meekness.
But we'll probably be more patient, gentle, compassionate, caring.
Use more wisdom and discretion. We consider ourselves part. We
probably won't even bring it up at all. Conscious of our own
weakness and so forth. And so, remember, you know, we
made this statement. Our Lord is dealing with his
disciples here in this Sermon on the Mount. He's talking to
us, talking to believers. And all the commands he's giving
are to believers in this Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through
7. And these commandments that he's giving are for each of us
personally, individually. As if the Lord were talking to
us personally. He says, you, you, you. He says, seek you first. There
for us personally to take personally and examine ourselves whether
we be in the family. Not our brother. We're not to
use, the Lord is speaking to us personally. And we're not
to use these things to judge our brother. That's a good thing to consider. Keep in mind. Okay.