“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Humorist Will Rogers was known for his down home country manner and his witty political satire.
As I came to these opening verses of Matthew chapter 7 a famous Will Rogers quote came to mind that I thought would be a fitting illustration of the first point I think needs to be made here; first let me share a few Will Rogers quotes with you that I found when I went to web site www.brainyquote.com to research Mr. Rogers.
“About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
“Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.”
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
“The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"
“We can’t all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.”
There is a house in Claremore, Oklahoma that Will Rogers purchased in 1911 and is now a memorial and museum to him. At the entrance to that museum is a statue of Rogers and at the base you’d find the words that he is best known for. “I never met a man I didn’t like”.
When he actually uttered that phrase the full of it was, “I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like”.
MAKING JUDGMENTS
Now my intention is not to make any statement about Will Rogers himself as concerning his truthfulness, his level of intelligence or his power of observation.
But I would have to say that if he meant to convey in literal terms that in all his life he never met an unlikable man then he would have to have led an extremely sheltered existence; because common sense and a normative level of observation will quickly remind any thinking person that there are just a lot of unlikable people out there and many of them make a career of earning the right to be disliked.
In fact it was only days before setting to this sermon that I was in a public place and once more Osama Bin Laden’s name had hit the morning news. When the pretty lady on CNN began broadcasting this particular news item a man near me said to his friend, ‘Now there’s a guy Will Rogers never met”.
I think that it is most probable that Rogers made the statement in an effort to bring to his hearers a sense of community and mutual respect during a time when our nation was going through some very difficult trials.
The only other possible explanation, which I do not think is the case, would be that he was an early proponent of the modern day bent toward political correctness and tolerance that has become a religion of its own.
Now I don’t have to go on a rant here about all the idiocy we see and hear in regards to the preaching of tolerance and acceptance of people different than we and religions different than ours and social philosophies that are not like our own.
Ultimately, and the sense in which this spirit affects us most as Christians, the ‘hands across the water’ people end up saying something like, ‘there are many ways to God and your way is as good as my way; all roads lead eventually to Heaven’, and so forth. What we need to understand is that the purpose behind that sort of approach is that if I believe all religions are fundamentally right and in the end we will all find our way to Heaven and God no matter the means and methods and doctrines we choose to adopt, then I am entirely disarmed in regards to having anything critical to say at all about your religion or philosophy.
Yours is right, mine is right, so if I contradict your religious creeds or practices I am intolerant and judgmental.
If I mean it when I say ‘I never met a man I didn’t like’ I have immediately forfeited my right to correct any wrong or outwardly observe and expose error or misbehavior in anyone.
So, having said all of that, the first point we make in reference to our verses of study is that when Jesus said “Do not judge”, He could not have meant that we are never to pass any kind of judgment on people concerning their beliefs or behaviors or their religious, social or political message.
Someone, here, might object saying, ‘well, Jesus judges but it is not the duty of the Christian to judge. We’re supposed to be only loving and accepting and merciful’, and they actually mean it as though tolerance and indulgence are Christian virtues.
But in Matthew 10:16 as Jesus sent His disciples out to minister to the communities around them He said, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves”.
He could not have said this to them and expected at the same time that they would refrain from making any sort of judgment about the people they come in contact with.
In Matthew 16 when He said to His Apostles, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees”, His very words encouraged discrimination, examination and careful judgment of the hypocrisy coming from the religious elite.
In fact, I’ll give you just a brief sneak preview of what is to come and tell you that chapter 7 of Matthew in its entirety concerns judgment. That is what this chapter is really all about.
It will deal with the Christian’s duty to judge rightly what he sees and hears around him, to judge his own motives and the intentions and loyalties of his own heart, and it will deal with the judgment to come and how it relates to the true believer, the false prophet and the hypocrite professing belief.
So we see that in His admonition to ‘judge not’, Jesus wasn’t commanding from His followers a backboneless acceptance of what comes, turning a blind eye to injustice, oppression, or even stupid, harmful behavior.
His own example of denouncing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, purging the temple and rebuking the ungodly attitudes of His disciples proves that for us.
WHY NOT JUDGE?
Now I think the next question after that of the validity of making judgments is ‘why not’.
Well to answer that we first have to figure out what sort of judging Jesus meant not to do, and who are we not to judge?
Let’s take this one step at a time.
When it comes to the unbelieving world, that is, all those outside of Christ and His church, we are clearly to make a certain judgment concerning them. That is, we are to discern by their life and the confession of their own lips and their own behaviors that they do not have the Holy Spirit in them.
In our Christian jargon we say ‘they are not saved’. That is a judgment and it is a judgment for their own good, because if we do not judge them to be unsaved we will not be inclined to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ.
So in judging them we are condemning them to Hell? No! In judging them we are recognizing that they are children of wrath destined for Hell and we give them the information they need and that the Holy Spirit will use to convict their hearts so that they might turn from sin and from their idols to serve the Living God.
So if you’re ever talking to someone about Jesus and their defenses come up and they say, ‘You have no right to judge me”, you can say, “No, not a right, a duty. And I do not judge you to condemn you, but to make the observation that you need Jesus in your life. Because the Bible says if you haven’t believed in Him you are already judged as a sinner, but if you believe that He died for your sins and rose again from the grave you will not face the judgment of God because Jesus faced that already for you”.
Or something very much like that.
Ok, so we move to the next step. If Jesus didn’t mean not to judge the unrighteous, then who did He mean?
Well, it’s right there in our text.
First of all remember that we have already established that the Sermon on the Mount is for believers. He is preaching to Christians throughout.
Then, come to verse 3 of chapter 7 and see that He says, ‘your brother’s eye’. Then verse 4: ‘say to your brother’. Then verse 5: ‘your brother’s eye’ (again).
He didn’t say, ‘another’s eye’, and He didn’t say ‘your neighbor’s eye’. He said, ‘your brother’. So what can we understand from this?
Well, since the Christian’s sins are paid for and put away forever in the depths of the sea, and since we are not our own but purchased with a price, and since the Bible makes it clear that it is God’s prerogative to ‘render to each one according to his deeds’ (Ps 62:12; Prov 24:12; Matt 16:27 Rom 2:6), then we can understand that the judgment we are not to practice, according to Jesus, is that which condemns our brethren.
Again, remember the sequence. He began describing the Christian, then He described the relationship between the Christian and God, then between the Christian and the world and now the Christian and the Christian, all still under the watchful eye of the Father.
So He says “Do not judge” and we come, understanding the ‘who’, that is, other Christians, and we see the why; ‘lest you be judged’.
Does that cause a problem? Think about it.
We just said that Jesus is talking to believers, and He is warning against judging other believers. We also said that for the believer his sins are put away forever by the atoning work of Christ. The believer will not come under judgment because Jesus faced judgment for him at Calvary.
So what do we do with the phrase, ‘lest you be judged’.
I think we get a hint of it in a parallel verse from Luke 6:37
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.”
In the sense of our eternal salvation we will not come into judgment.
John 5:24
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
Now let’s use the family unit by way of illustration. A child is born to me and because of that the child will always be my child. That cannot change. Even if I, being evil, became so angry and discouraged at my child’s ill behavior I declared them to be no longer my child, they would still be my child in fact. I will never do that to one of my children and I can tell you with even more assurance that God will never disown one that He has redeemed and made His own through adoption.
But being a good father, if I am a good father, I will discipline when necessary, and if one of my children is ill-treating another one I just may see fit to impose the same discomfort on the guilty party that they imposed on their sibling victim.
Jesus said ‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy”. We agreed then that He was talking of Christians.
Do not judge, lest you be judged. This has nothing to do with eternal condemnation, it has to do with a right heart before God and a Godly heart in our Christian relationships.
PECKS, SPECKS AND LOGS
“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” Romans 2:1
In verse 2 of our text Jesus makes it clear that if we’re going to be condemning and judgmental it is not only fair but natural that we will be measured by our own standards. Here is what I mean by that.
From the standpoint of our inter-personal relationships, if we are a critical person, finger-pointing, gossiping, without compassion or mercy, it is just in the sinful nature of mankind to retaliate. So ultimately we are going to be treated by people in the way we habitually treat them.
“Beneath this stone lies judgmental Joe;
No one was sorry to see him go”.
Right? Has there ever been anyone in your life like that? Someone, maybe a family member who you inevitably had to see once or twice a year, say, at family gatherings; and you couldn’t wait to get away from them or see them leave?
I had an uncle like that and I won’t malign him now that he is dead and it’s all way in the past, but as a child I was greatly intimidated by his gruff and critical manner.
Whenever we were together as families I always sensed from him a disapproval of my father because of differences of opinion they had, and I was always glad when it was time to get in the car and go home.
Even more so when it’s not family, but just working partners or acquaintances for any other reason, we are by our nature much more likely to treat people according to how they treat us. Hence the exhortation, ‘Do not judge lest you be judged. For the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you”.
More importantly, God has to deal with us according to how we deal with other people because He is just and fair.
Listen.
“But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.” 12 So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” Rom 14:10-12
“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” 2 Cor 5:9-10
Now as we move on to verse 3 through 5 of our text we can detect a note of sarcasm as Jesus inserts a little bit of poignant humor into His sermon.
Can you imagine going to a blind optometrist? Can you picture yourself going for lasic surgery, laying in one of those reclining chairs with the nurse standing by to assist and in comes the man who is going to operate on your cornea, wearing dark glasses and waving a white, red-tipped cane back and forth as he approaches?
When Jesus talks of removing specks while sporting logs He is in effect saying that we are not qualified to judge one another spiritually.
The sin nature has so tainted our perception that we just do not have the capability of judging accurately and fairly.
C.S. Lewis drove this point home with his own illustration:
“Take the case of a sour old maid, who is a Christian, but cantankerous. On the other hand, take some pleasant and popular fellow, but who has never been to church. Who knows how much more cantankerous the old maid might be if she were not a Christian, and how much more likeable the nice fellow might be if he were a Christian? You can’t judge Christianity simply by comparing the product in these two people; you would need to know what kind of raw material Christ was working with in both cases.”
C.S. Lewis – God in the Dock, “Answers to Questions on Christianity” (1944) ans. 12, p 59.
In John chapter 9 when James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who had rejected Jesus, our Lord told them that they didn’t know what spirit they were of.
He was referring to a condemning, satanic spirit that would permanently destroy others giving them no opportunity for repentance or future relationship with God.
This is the spirit we manifest every time we relegate a believer to uselessness because of what we see in them that doesn’t measure up to our standards of what a ‘good Christian’ is.
The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. Yet how often do people in the church destroy the reputations and relationships of believers by pointing out the specks in their brother’s eye in a judgmental and public way?
It would be interesting to know how many of the Samaritans in that very village became believers later, when the Lord had been crucified and risen and His Apostles came through on the way to the Gentile regions, and preached the gospel to the very ones James and John wanted to destroy with fire.
Acts 8:4-8
“Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. 5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. 6 The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip, as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. 7 For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice; and many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed. 8 So there was much rejoicing in that city.”
A little side note here: Does this help you to understand why Paul called the cross of Christ ‘the joy that was set before Him’? Even as He and His disciples walked together on this road and the sons of thunder expressed a desire, in defense of Him remember, to consume with fire those who had rejected Him, in His great heart He must have been rejoicing knowing that because of what He was heading to Jerusalem to accomplish, these same folks who didn’t want Him in their village, in just a few short weeks would be rejoicing at the good news of His resurrection and being healed of diseases and delivered from evil.
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”. (7:5)
I think the message Jesus wanted to convey with that admonition is that once we’ve judged ourselves, and examined ourselves, and sought to have our own blindness concerning our true condition rectified so that we might see ourselves clearly, we would realize that we’re in no position to criticize the specks in the lives of our brethren and much more likely to leave them to the Lord’s correcting and healing hand.
LIKING VERSUS LOVING
As I draw this to a close I want to go a little beyond the text and bring in the contrast that should serve to sharpen our focus a little.
“Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.” Gal 6:1
“Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;” I Thess 4:9
“Let love of the brethren continue.” Heb 13:1
“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart,” I Pet 1:22
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” I Jn 3:14-16
“The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” I Jn 2:10
This is not a comprehensive list by any means, of passages in the New Testament that require the believer to love and to put love into action.
I just want to point out to you for the sake of the contrast I mentioned a few moments ago that none of them tell us to like each other.
Going back to Will Rogers and his claim never to have met a man he didn’t like; I doubt he could get away with saying that in any public forum in our world today.
There are any number of people with access to the media who would immediately rise up and offer to introduce him to a large number of individuals from professional sports to politics to entertainment to the televised church and say, ‘here’s a guy you’ll be happy to dislike, Mr. Rogers’.
But I submit to you that as Holy Spirit-filled believers in Jesus Christ we are given Biblical mandate to consider that there is no man or woman we can meet that we’re not supposed to love.
If they are an unbeliever than we are to love them with the love with which God loved the world and gave His only Son so that if anyone would believe in Him they would be saved.
When it comes to the brethren however, we are to love them as family, prepared to give of ourselves sacrificially to supply their need, whatever that need might be, and if we have to go to them with any issue, to be certain our own heart is right first and then go to them in the love and gentleness of the Spirit.
I further submit to you that if we are first judges of our selves willing to let our Lord search our hearts and see if there be any wicked way in us and cleanse us from it, and then actively love the brethren just because they are our brothers and we are required to do so, in most cases we will eventually find ourselves liking them too.
Do not judge lest you be judged. Let the love of the brethren continue.
