Sermon Central
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If You Want To Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over The Beehive Series
Contributed by Paul Wallace on Sep 17, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: Criticism is not the most effective way to motivate others.
If you want to gather honey, Don’t kick over the beehive.
Criticism is not an effective Motivator for Change
I got the seed thought for this message from Dale Carnegie’s 3 fundamental principles for dealing with People effectively.(Winning Friends and Influencing People) Then I went to the Word of God to see if it was true. The principle says when we criticize others to get them to change they get defensive and are less likely to change. The reason is that most people think they are really a good person deep down, no matter how bad they really are. To use a old saying (adage) “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive”
Two Gun Crowley
On May 7, 1931 the most sensational manhunt in New York City came to a climax. After a two week search “Two gun Crowley- the killer who didn’t smoke or drink was trapped in his girlfriends apartment. 150 policeman laid siege to the apartment. The chopped holes in the roof to smoke out the cop killer with tear gas. 10,000 people watched as he fired back at the police from behind an overstuffed chair.
When he was finally captured the police commissioner declared that he was the most dangerous criminal in the history of New York who will kill at the drop of a feather. But how did Crowley regard himself. We know from the letter he wrote while in the apartment under bullet fire. “TO whom it may concern, “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one-one that would do nobody any harm”
He was being chased because a police man came up to a car where he and his girl were necking and asked for his license. With a word he drew his gun and shot the police man.
When he was sentenced to death in the electric chair, did he say, “This is what I get for killing people”. No he said, “This is what I get for defending myself.”
Al Capone, America’s most notorious Public enemy didn’t condemn himself. Instead he saw himself as a public benefactor -an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor. If these two wicked men didn’t blame themselves for anything-what about the people you and I come into contact with.
4:11
Don’t speak evil against each other, my dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize each other and condemn each other, then you are criticizing and condemning God’s law. But you are not a judge who can decide whether the law is right or wrong. Your job is to obey it.
4:12
God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to condemn your neighbor?
"Stop judging others, and you will not be judged.
7:2
For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. NLT
Romans 14:10 You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written: "’As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ’every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’" 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.
Examples Michael 2 Samuel 6:20-22
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" 21 David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel--I will celebrate before the Lord. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." 23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
Davids brother 1 Samuel 17:28
17:28
When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle."
I The Command: (Judge Not)
I struggled with the difference between Judging we are not supposed to do and Fruit inspecting or discerning we must do. I think perhaps the difference is the speaking of what we think.
