All right, James chapter four,
a title of the lesson this morning, don't be judgmental. Now our
lesson begins in verse 11 of James four, speak not evil. One of another brethren, either
speak of the evil of his brother and judges his brother, speak
of the evil of the law and judges the law. But if thou judge the
law, thou are not a doer of the law, but a judge. Now this, other
verses of scripture do not mean that we should never make judgments
about people or things, whether they're right or wrong. The word
judges that James uses here means to condemn or to punish. It doesn't
mean to make a decision. It means to condemn or punish
it. So what he's telling us here
is that we're not to condemn or punish our brethren. Look
back at Matthew chapter seven. This is another verse people
use to say, well, we shouldn't make judgments about one another,
but that's not what it means at all. We must make judgments
about certain matters, whether they're right or wrong and whether
we should do them or not do them. Matthew chapter seven, verse
one, our Lord says, judge not that you be not judged. Now,
this does not mean we're never to make a determination about
if someone is right or wrong, they're doing right or wrong,
whether it's good or safe for us to be around them. It doesn't
mean that at all. Because in just a few verses down, he tells
us we're to judge whether or not someone is a dog or a pig
spiritually. Look at verse six. Give not that
which is holy under the dogs. Neither cast your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again
and rend you. Now, if you're not gonna give
that which is holy unto dogs, you're gonna have to make a determination
who is a dog, spiritually, right? We're to judge whether or not
someone's a false prophet. Look down at verse 15. He tells
us, beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly, they're ravening wolves. We're gonna
have to make a determination if someone is a false prophet
or not. In verse 20, he tells us how you're gonna know him.
Wherefore, by their fruits, you shall know them. So you've got
to make a determination about these things, about whether someone's
a false prophet or not, so you stay away from them. Now look
over at Romans chapter 16. Here's another matter that we
are to judge, to make a determination about. Matthew chapter 16. We're
to make a determination about people who cause division among
the brethren, who cause error in doctrine. Romans 16 verse
17. Now I beseech you, brethren,
mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the
doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. For they that are such serve
not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good
words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. So
we're to mark people. When you're going to mark them,
you have to make a determination. Who is it that has this error
in doctrine? Who is it that's causing these
divisions? And we're to avoid them. Don't be mean to them when you
see them. That's not what he means at all. It means avoid
giving them any sign. Don't give them any indication
that what they're doing is OK, because you still socialize with
them. No, it's not OK. We're to avoid
them. I know that sounds kind of harsh,
but if you look at 2 Thessalonians 3, this is exactly what scripture
teaches in regards to this. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 6. Now we command you, brethren,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves
from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the
tradition which you have received of us. And he says it again in
verse 14. And if any man obey not our word
by this epistle, note that man, that you're going to have to
make a determination, note that man, see who he is and have no
company with him that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not
as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. See, making this
judgment of someone who's walking disorderly and to not socialize
with them, not have fellowship with them, It's not so we can
condemn that person or so we can, we can punish that person.
You're to admonish them as a brother, hopefully withdrawing yourself,
avoiding to, uh, having fellowship and stuff with them will show
them the error of their ways. And what you hope is that it'll
cause them to repent and turn back to the Lord. But now here's
the key in all this, where you take these verses in light of
what James just told us, make these judgments. But don't be
judgmental when you do. That's what He's teaching us
here. Make these judgments, but don't condemn your brethren.
You just leave that to God. That's His business, not ours.
And like I say, these verses, and I think this is something
that's necessary to say. I went through this with our
young adults in those classes. These verses do not mean that
you're never to point out evil, that you see something evil and
you say, oh, well, I'm not supposed to judge. I'm going to keep my
mouth shut. Absolutely not. Don't ever fall into that trap.
And the best example that I can think of in this is this doctor
at Michigan State University, U.S. Gymnastics, who abused these
poor girls that were in his care. Same thing is coming out now
with this doctor at Ohio State. It all started years and years
and years ago when I was there. People knew what was going on,
but they wouldn't say anything. They heard what was going on,
and I don't know what they thought. Maybe they thought, why am I
supposed to judge this? It's none of my business. And nobody did
anything to stop it. Now, don't ever use scripture
as an excuse to do that. That is not what the scripture
teaches us at all. Every one of us has an obligation
to stop that kind of evil. You can make a determination
of something that wicked, that evil, and do something to stop
it. Point out the evil, but don't
be judgmental about it. That's what the scripture is
teaching us. Just don't try to punish that person. You let the
proper authorities, whether it's the Lord or whether it's judicial
system or something, you let them handle that. Make that determination
about it. And this is difficult. It's something
that is that wicked, that evil. Make a determination, but don't
look down your nose at them when you do it. Don't be judgmental
about them and think, well, I'm so much better than you because
I never did that. Let me tell you what, the only reason you
and I are not in that exact same boat is God's grace has kept
us from it. Now that's so. And if we believe
that, that will let us not be judgmental and point out evil,
but leave the condemnation of that to the Lord. And you know,
even strong believers need to be warned about this. This is
something that's so in us because we are much more prone to find
fault than find the good in people, aren't we? Aren't we? We're much
more prone to criticize people than to praise them. That's so.
We are much more prone to repeat the bad that we hear than the
good that we hear. Because the bad that we hear
is some juicy piece of gossip that might be interesting to
somebody else. And we're much more prone to repeat those things. And that is what scripture is
telling us is wrong. So let me give you four reasons
here not to be judgmental about our brethren. Number one, don't
be judgmental about our brethren because that's condemning our
own family. We're condemning our brother.
And if we're punishing him, we're punishing our own family. Now,
families are to help one another. Families are to be there to protect
one another. When my sons came into our family,
I told both of them, I said, from now on, you can count on
this, I got your back. I'm not going to be stabbing
you in it. I got your back. That's what families are supposed
to do for one another. Families are supposed to speak
to one another and of one another in love. Look back at James 3
verse 8. But the tongue can no man tame.
It's an unruly evil full of deadly poison. Therewith, bless we God,
even the father. And therewith, curse we men.
which are made after the similitude of God. Now that's speaking of
the family of God, those people who've been born again, born
after the similitude of God, born in the image of God, from
the seed of the word of God. Out of the same mouth proceed
blessing and cursing? My brethren, these things ought
not so to be. Doth the fountain send forth
at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree,
my brethren, bear olive berries, either of vine figs? So can no
fountain, both yield salt water and fresh. Now, we can't use
the same tongue to bless God and to curse his children. And
I'm telling you the best way to ruin the love and the unity
of a family is start being judgmental one of another. Start carrying
tales about one another. You're going to wait and see
what happens when you have a family reunion after that starts. You're
going to have a fist fight on your hands. best way to ruin
the unity of a family. Now this is God's family. Let's
see that we protect the unity of it and the love of it by not
condemning one another. And if you feel judgmental about
somebody, at least have the good sense to keep your mouth shut
about it. At least have that good sense. And I'll tell you
something else about this condemning our brethren. Look back at Romans
chapter 14. If we condemn our brethren, we've gotten too big
for our britches. We've taken on a responsibility
that belongs to God our Father, not children. Romans 14 verse
four. Who art thou that judgest another
man's servant? To his own master he standeth
or falleth, yea, he shall be holding up, for God is able to
make him stand. See, children don't discipline
each other. because they're not wise enough to do it, are they?
That falls upon the parents. Discipline falls as the responsibility
of the parents. Well, this is the family of God.
Let's leave the discipline of his children to him. All right,
number two, don't be judgmental. Let's not condemn our brethren,
because when we do that, we sit in judgment on God's law. He
says here, he that speaketh the evil of his brother and judgeth,
condemneth his brother, speaketh the evil of the law and judges
the law. For if you judge the law, you're
not a doer of it, but you're a judge. Now we're supposed to
be doers of God's law. That's our relationship with
God's law. We're to obey it. We are not to sit in judgment
on God's law and say, well, this law is more important than this
law. We're not to decide, well, this
one, you know, this, this commandment is important. The other one,
this, this really isn't that important. That's being a judge of God's
law. Now someone will think, but, So-and-so didn't do right. Maybe they did something, a violation
of the law, or they did something that wasn't right, and everybody
ought to know about that. Well, think about that. Look
at Leviticus chapter 19. Suppose some of our brethren
did do that. We think they ought to be condemned
by us. We're going to carry this tale
about something that they've done. Well, you know, if you tell everybody,
you take that tale, you spread it all over the place, you know
what? We've broken God's law too. God's law forbids that. The law of Moses forbids that.
Leviticus chapter 19, verse 16. Thou shalt not go up and down
as a tailbearer among thy people. Neither shalt thou stand against
the blood of thy neighbor. I am the Lord. Thou shalt hate
thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke
thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge
nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. So if we're being
tailbears, gossipers, well, we've judged the law. We've determined
that which commandment is more important. The one that was more
important. If we make this judgment, you
know, the one we're always judge is the least important. The one
we've broken every time. That's what we'll judge. And
if we're, so if we think, well, you know, carrying this tail,
being a tail bearer, that's not that bad because what this person
did is worse. We're not qualified to make that judgment. Both are
commandments of God's law. And if you look back in James
chapter two, really the person that carries the tail is more
guilty, more guilty because if we carry this tail or tail bearers,
not only do we break the law of Moses, we also break the royal
law of love. James two verse eight. If you fulfill the royal law,
according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,
you do well. Now, to love our neighbors ourself,
we don't want our neighbor condemning us that way, do we? By holding
us to the same standard we're holding him to. So we violate
the royal law of love by condemning them and carrying this tale.
And then someone will think, well, you know, My brethren,
they're not acting right. They're not doing right. They're
so immature. They're just causing a mess of
everything. All right. All right. What does scripture say about
that? Galatians 6 verse 2, bear ye one another's burdens and
so fulfill the law of Christ. You fulfill the law of Christ,
the law of love by bearing one another's burdens. See, we can
never say this matter. Now this seals the whole deal,
this matter of love. because we can never say love
for Christ or love for his people is unimportant, can we? Never.
Love for Christ and love for his people is always the most
important, and it is the most unloving thing to condemn our
brothers and sisters. Now look at Proverbs chapter
31. This is a good verse. Our tongues are to speak in love,
and our tongues will speak in love If our tongues are guided
by wisdom, Proverbs chapter 31, we won't, we don't have time
to read the whole thing, but this describes to us the virtuous
woman. And look what it says about her
in verse 26, Proverbs 31. She opened up her mouth with
wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She opens her
mouth and she speaks in love and kindness because her tongue
is directed by wisdom. And ours will too, if we pray
that the Lord direct our tongue with wisdom and speak in love
one for another, because this is the family of God. All right,
number three, don't be judgmental about our brethren. Don't be
condemning them for every little thing they do, because you know
what that shows? That shows self-righteousness and it shows the height of hypocrisy.
Condemning our brethren, carrying tales about them, just looking
down our nose at them, judging them, wanting them to be condemned.
That is so hypocritical. And you know why that's so hypocritical?
Because whatever it is they did, that's just, whatever they did
is wrong. Okay. But you know what? You and I
are guilty of the exact same thing. Exact same thing. Whatever it is. Because to offend
in one point is to be guilty of all. So whatever it is they're
guilty of, you and I are guilty of it too. So what are we doing
judging them? We're guilty of the very same
thing. This thing of making a judgment, but not being judgmental, I'll
tell you where it begins. It begins with humility. And
what's humility? It's an accurate view of ourselves.
It's an accurate view of my guilt, my shame, my need of Christ.
See, all this begins, this stems from verse 10. What James is
saying here about not judging, being judgmental of our brethren
stems from verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Just humble yourself
and that'll keep you from this matter of hypocrisy. And you
know how hypocrites operate. They say one thing to you, but
then they go say something to somebody else totally different. And one of the two, usually,
they're whispering behind people's backs. That's what a hypocrite
does. Well, let me give you a pretty good rule of thumb. If you find
something you want to say needs to be whispered, don't say it. Just don't say
it. Why are you whispering it? You
know, you've got some really great juicy piece of gossip.
You get somebody, even if you're alone, and our nature is to whisper
it. You know why we're whispering
it? Oh, it's a juicy piece of gossip. I want to tell it. But
I really don't want everybody in the world knowing I'm telling
this. That's why we whisper it. Well, if you need to whisper
something, just don't say it. Because that's the way a hypocrite
operates. Just cover the faults in, sin of your brethren. Now again, obviously this does
not mean something as evil as what we talked about or as abuse
and these kinds of, I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking
about common faults of God's people. Just cover them up. Just keep them quiet. Because
to do otherwise is to be just hypocritical because every one
of us is sinners and it's just hypocritical to harshly condemn
somebody for doing the exact same thing we do. If you look
back at Matthew chapter seven, we read this first verse earlier,
and then our Lord gives us an explanation of what he's talking
about. Judge not that you be not judged. Don't condemn people
that you don't be condemned. For he says in verse two, with
what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what
measure you mean, it should be measured back to you again. And
why beholdest the mote that's in thy brother's eye, just the
little sliver that's in thy brother's eye, but you consider not the
beam that's in thine own eye, something that's bigger in your
own eye. 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. See, that's what
the way a hypocrite operates. You just take care of business
at home. First, cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and
then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother's eye. See, this being harshly judgmental,
condemning our brethren, is just hypocritical. All right, fourthly,
we don't condemn, don't be judgmental of our brethren, because listen,
there's one lawgiver, there's one, and he's not us, we're not
him. Verse 12, back in James 4. There's one lawgiver who's able
to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judges another? Now God's the judge. He's the
lawgiver and all things are manifest in his sight. He sees everything. Everything is naked and open
under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now that's the
right person to be the judge of all the earth, isn't it? Because
he sees everything as it is. He's qualified to be the judge. And he's qualified to be the
one to condemn because he's got all the facts. He knows the full
story. Somebody can't just tell him
part of the story and he makes a wrong decision. He already
knows the full story. So whatever decisions he makes
are right. And you and I aren't qualified
to do that. We're not qualified to condemn our brethren because
we never have the full story. We never do. We don't have all
the facts. And I can tell you what else
we don't know. We certainly don't know what's in our brother's
heart. We can't see in there. We don't know what his motive
was, what caused him to do what he did. Could be he went through
some horrible circumstances and that made him act differently
than he would have otherwise, made him act differently than
somebody else would have. But these awful circumstances
just slanted the way he looked at things and the way he did
things. And if we knew, what he went through. If we knew that
pebble in his shoe, if we knew this horrible, painful thing
he'd been through, I hope we'd be tenderhearted. We'd be forgiving
and understanding. See, if we're going to condemn
somebody, we ought to at least hear their side of the story
first. Now, maybe after we hear their side of the story, we still
won't have all the facts. We still won't know the full
story. But if we're going to condemn somebody, shouldn't we
at least hear their side of the story first? Of course we should. Nicodemus told all those Pharisees. They were meeting together and
Nicodemus told them that. John 7, verse 51. They were talking
about the Lord Jesus and he said, boys, wait a minute. Does our law judge any man before
it hears him? And know what he's doing? Know
why he did what he did? Well, of course not. And so we
at least talk to hear their side of the story before we make some
judgment like that. One of the many wise things I
heard about Brother Henry doing, somebody came into his office
one day. He was studying and came in and started wanting to
talk about some horrible thing. Somebody did. Henry said, hang
on one minute. He picked up the phone to dial their number. He
said, if we're going to talk about it, let's get him on the
phone so we get both sides of the story at the same time. And
that shut down the conversation. We ought to get both sides, shouldn't
we? And I tell you something else we don't know. Suppose our
brother did do something wrong. You know what we don't know?
What went on between him and God afterwards. We don't know
the repentance that could be in his heart and probably is.
See this word that James uses in verse 11, speak not evil.
The word actually means to slander. Now, you think, well, you know,
my brother, he really did do this. I mean, I saw it with my
own two eyes. He did do that. But you know, we're still slandering
him if we don't know all the facts. And when we go tell the
story, you know, we tell the story in such a way that makes
others agree with us, makes others want to condemn him too. Well,
that's slandering him too. Slanting the story so somebody
will think the same thing we do. See, that's just, that's
slandering our brother. Because we don't have all the
facts. There's one lawgiver. He's got
all the facts. Leave judgment to him. Leave
salvation or condemnation to him. I want to close here with
something that's absolutely beautiful. All these things we've talked
about, that ought to move our hearts, not to want to be judgmental,
condemn our brethren. Here's the trump card. Always
save the trump card for last, don't you? You and I, if we make
a judgment about our brethren, we can only condemn them. We
can't make them obey in heart, can we? We can't save them. We can't give them repentance.
All you and I can do is condemn them. But God, the lawgiver,
he can do that. And he does do that for his people.
He does make his people obey in heart. He does save them from
their sins. He does grant them repentance.
He gives His people a new heart of righteousness that does obey
Him, that does love Him, that does follow Him. Now, God's a
lawgiver. Certainly, He has the power to
judge and condemn and damn, doesn't He? And He will do that. Make
no mistake about it. He will do that to every unbeliever. But not everyone. Not everyone. He's going to save His people.
He's going to save them by His grace. And those people, the
judge of all the earth, is not going to judge and condemn them
because they've already been condemned in the person of Christ,
their substitute. Christ was made sin for them
and he was already condemned. He was already punished. So God's
elect are going to be found not guilty by the all-seeing eye
of God that sees everything. He's got the full story and he
sees his people as righteous. He says His people have obeyed
His law, because they did in the person of their representative.
He sees His people as white as snow, because they are. They've
been washed white as snow in the blood of Christ. And God
the Lawgiver, who's got the full story, says, My people have kept
My law in every jot and every tittle. Oh, that's good news, isn't it?
Well then, who do we think we are to condemn those people that
the lawgiver says is righteous? It's not our place. That ought
to move our hearts and not sit in judgment on our brethren.
Now in closing, look at 1 Corinthians 11. If you are just determined
to judge somebody, there's one person you can judge. There's
one. Ourselves. 1 Corinthians 11. Verse 31, for if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. Now, if we condemn our own selves,
if we reserve our judgment, reserve our condemnation, reserve looking
down our noses at our own selves for what we've done and for what
we are, condemn ourselves for it. God would not condemn us.
That's what that's saying. And you know why God would not
condemn us? Because if we'll condemn ourselves, there's one
thing we'll do. Run to Christ for salvation.
And God will never condemn anybody in Christ. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Then let's
run to Him. There's no condemnation in Him. And if there's no condemnation
in Him, Who do we think we are condemning somebody God says
is not condemned? That takes care of this matter,
being judgmental one towards another, doesn't it? All right,
Lord bless you.