Inigo Montoya: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged?

Matthew 7 and the Difference Between Hypocritical and Righteous Judgment

You know, we should really refrain from criticizing or critiquing other preachers and their theology because Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 1, Judge not, lest ye be judged. You keep using that verse, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I want to thank you so much for joining me for the program. The first thing I'm going to address, you might notice I'm wearing a bit of a unique shirt today, a shirt that you've not seen before and I'm wearing it for the first time.

And I will explain what this shirt is a little bit later in the video because it actually does connect directly to our subject matter at hand. So I'll explain that in just a little bit. So what do we do with Matthew 7 verse 1?

Judge not, lest ye be judged. That is the King James Translation with which we are most familiar. I'll be reading from the Legacy Standard Translation, which says, Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

And I wish I had a nickel for every time someone has come up to me and said, Judge not, lest ye be judged. Or someone has written an email telling me not to judge and they cite Matthew 7, 1 or comments that I see in the comment section of my YouTube videos.

Oh, my word, I wish I had a nickel. So what do we do with this? Well, what we do with it is we look at it in its proper context. And the context becomes very clear just by reading the next verse, actually.

So let's look at this. Matthew 7, beginning in verse 1, Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

So very clearly, the context is hypocritical judging, judging someone for doing something that maybe we are really doing ourselves. That is what Jesus warns us against. And so the only way to use myself as an example, the only way that I would be running afoul of Matthew 7, verse 1, is if I were doing the same things that the people that I critique on this channel are doing, the false prophets and false teachers.

So if I were giving false prophecies, or if I were putting words in God's mouth that he did not say, or if I were manufacturing fake signs and wonders like Todd White does with the leg lengthening routine and all of the others due to fake signs and wonders, if I were to be exploiting the poor, the sick, the desperate and the widows for my own personal financial gain, if I were to be telling poor people, Oh, you're poor?

Well, the way you need to get out of poverty, if you're in debt, the way you get out of debt, well, send me money, of course.

Even that little you have left, give it to God.

Sow a seed in my ministry so you can reap a harvest. Oh, you're sick? Oh, that's too bad. Well, if you need a miracle of healing, then what you need to do, you see, is sow some seed. Give me your money and God will give you a harvest and he will heal you.

Oh, you've got a child with cancer? That's pretty serious. And so the bigger miracle you need, the bigger monetary seed you'd better sow. So I recommend you really emptying out your pockets, open up that wallet and send a hefty seed into my ministry so God will give you that miracle of healing that your child needs so desperately.

If I were doing stuff like that, then yes, absolutely. I would be running afoul of Matthew 7 verse 1 because this is what Benny Hinn does. This is what Kenneth Copeland does. This is what Andrew Womack does.

This is what Jesse Duplantis does. This is this is what all of these false teachers and false prophets do. If I were claiming angel feathers falling out of the sky in my church services like Bill Johnson does.

And by the way, there will be more on that in a soon upcoming video, Lord willing. So, yes, if I were doing these things, absolutely. I would be running afoul of Matthew 7 verse 1 and I would be in a very dangerous place before the Lord.

If you, for example, say if you go and start criticizing people for using profanity, but you yourself have the mouth of a sailor, then yeah, you would be running afoul of Matthew 7 verse 1. So this is a prohibition against hypocritical judging, not all judging in general.

Let's continue here. Verse three, Jesus says, and 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? 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.

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. So verse five is very helpful for us as well, because Jesus says, you hypocrite, hypocritical judging.

This is what he's talking about. But he says, first, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck that is out of your brother's eye. So even in that verse, Jesus absolutely says that there is a time and place for taking the speck out of your brother's eye.

You just better make sure you don't have the log. In your own eye as you endeavor to do so. So this is a prohibition against judging hypocritically, not all judging in general. So let's look at a few more verses.

Proverbs 27 verse five says this, better is reproof that is revealed than love that is hidden. What is reproof? Well, it is rebuke. So there is a place for rebuke. Proverbs 31 verse nine, open your mouth, judge righteously.

Well, there's a direct command from Scripture. Open your mouth and judge. Just judge righteously. Matthew chapter 18. Now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

So if you know of some brother or sister in your local church that is in some serious, habitual, egregious sin, then you need to go to that person and go to that person first in private. And if he listens to you, he or she listens to you, wonderful, praise the Lord, you have won your brother.

Don't talk about it anymore. Now, for time's sake, I'm not going to go give you a full exposition of Matthew 18. But this is church discipline, Matthew 18, 15 through 20. And the steps end up, if the person does not repent, then you end up telling this sin to the entire church.

This is the very first command that Jesus gave to the church, that of church discipline in Matthew 18. Just as much a command, by the way, as is the Lord's Supper and believers baptism. And yet hardly any, very, very few churches actually do this.

Righteous Judgment, Church Discipline, and Exposing False Teachers by Name

So let's go to John chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus words here, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Oh, so Jesus himself says, judge with righteous judgment. Those are the words straight out of the mouth of Jesus.

We are not to judge according to appearance, but we are to judge with righteous judgment. First Corinthians 5, verse 12, Paul says, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those within the church?

Here again is a command from scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. We are to not be judging outsiders, but we are to judge those within the church, or at least those who profess to be within the body of Christ.

Second Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is God breathed, theonoustos, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. So the word of God is profitable for reproof, for rebuke, for correction.

This is why we have the word of God. It is profitable for all of these things, and one of them is judging sin, judging deception within the church. Romans 16, verse 17, Paul writes, now I urge you brothers to keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and stumblings, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them.

So Paul here is saying, keep your eye on those, mark those who cause divisions and hindrances, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and stay away from them. Titus chapter 1, verse 9, holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, the doctrine, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to reprove those who contradict it.

So an elder of a church, a pastor, shepherd, elder, those terms are used interchangeably, one of his most solemn duties is to teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it. And some of you may be thinking, well, okay, okay, okay.

So I guess we are supposed to judge sin and judge false teaching and false prophecies and all that, but we should do so only in generalities. We should never name names, right? Now, there is a biblical precedent for calling out false teachers by name.

The apostles did so on multiple occasions and they did so quite publicly. Notice, Demas was called out by name, Phygelus, Hermogenes, by name, Hymenaeus and Alexander, by name, Philetus, Balaam, Diotrephes, by name.

So the apostles, Peter, John, Paul, they all called out false teachers publicly and they did so by name. Now, we should not call someone a false teacher if they differ with us on some relatively minor, secondary or tertiary theological issue.

That's not what we're talking about. But when someone has been teaching objective heresy and has been giving false prophecies for years, year after year after year, many of them, decade after decade after decade, they've been called to repent and yet they refuse to do so or give false repentance.

Benny Hinn, I'm looking at you. Yes, there is a biblical precedent for calling out false teachers by name. Ephesians 5, verse 11. And do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them.

So, dear friends, these are clear, clear commands from Scripture. We absolutely are to judge, but we are to do so with righteous judgment on matters of doctrine, on matters of theology. We absolutely are to judge on these things.

In fact, a little bit of Bible trivia for you here. Every single book in the New Testament, except for one, and that's Philemon, but 26 out of the 27 books in the New Testament directly warn about false doctrine and or false teachers.

And the great majority of those books do so on multiple occasions. And there's some books that are even almost entirely dedicated to warning about false doctrine and false teachers, like Jude, for example.

And so there are literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of commands in Scripture to judge, to call out false doctrine, to call out false teachers, sometimes by name. Twenty six of the 27 books in the New Testament have these commands, have these instructions.

So we absolutely are to judge, but we're just to do so with righteous judgment. So now on to my shirt, I am wearing a Barong, and this is like the official shirt for men in the Philippines. They told me the history, I don't remember all the details, but one of their previous presidents officially named the Barong as the official shirt for Filipino men.

So they gave me a couple of these shirts. And so that's why I'm wearing this, because I've just returned from the Philippines. I was just in the Philippines preaching there. And I've been there. This is either, that was either my third or fourth, I think it was my fourth visit to the Philippines.

My first visit was in 2015. And then, of course, my most recent just returned from, so over a span of a decade here. And this is the family that I was with. This is Armand with the gray hair there and his wife, Jackie, on the far left, and their children, Leon next to Jackie.

And then the boy, Zach, and their oldest daughter, Abigail. And so I've known them for nine years now and have been with them a number of times. Precious, precious people. I just can't tell you how much I love this family.

They are some of the sweetest folks. Filipinos in general are some of the sweetest people I've ever been around. But this family is just so, so precious. And they mean so much to me. This is a picture of Armand.

I snapped this real quick. This is at one of the airports where we were in a number of different places going from island to island. And I snapped this picture of Armand there at the counter. We're trying to get my scooter figured out there with the people that work at the airport.

But Armand is passing out gospel tracts to the people who work at the airport. So very evangelistic and just a precious, precious brother. So at any rate, some of the people that I met in previous trips to the Philippines, when they first heard of me, they first came to the conference.

Some of them came out of sheer curiosity, not really knowing what to expect. Others came with the intent of refuting me because they were in charismatic churches. They were in churches maybe with female pastors, which are always charismatic.

And so they came with mixed motives, some of them. Not Armand's family. I'm talking about just people in general. But when they heard the truth, the truth actually prevailed upon them. Not all of them, but a number of them.

Because this most recent trip from which I just returned, some of these people that heard me for the first time nine years ago, six, seven years ago, whenever it was, they came up to me just now, just recently and said, Justin, when you were first here, I was in a bad church.

I was in a charismatic church. I was in a church with female pastors and I spoke in tongues. I did all these things. But the truth that you presented had an impact on me. And now, 2024, they're in good churches led by biblically qualified men.

These are just a couple of pictures. This is a man named Eric, and Eric is one of these. When he first heard me some years back, he was in a bad church, charismatic church, and his wife was actually not even converted yet.

But by God's grace, the Lord used the truth that has nothing to do with me, dear friends, but the Lord simply used the truth that I was privileged enough to present and it prevailed upon both of them.

In Eric's case, now he's moved from bad theology to good theology, and his wife, who was not converted at the time, is now converted. Because anytime I do my seminar, Clouds Without Water, Engage False Teachers, I always, always, always give the gospel.

And the gospel prevailed upon her. So she's saved. They're both now in a day in their families. They're in a good church. Rock of Refuge Church is actually Armen's church, and he leads in music there.

Precious, precious people. And this is another young man, similar story. This is a man named Jose, and I met Jose. This was not in Manila. This was the last. This was a completely different island. But right before we left to come home, final conference there, Jose came up to me and Jose told me that he is a pastor, southern part of the Philippines, which is heavily Islamic.

And he came up to me and he said, Justin, I hope you don't mind, but I've been taking your teaching, some of your videos up into the mountains in southern Philippines where there's some other churches.

And he said, these churches, most of them are charismatic, but I've been taking your teaching to these churches and it has had a tremendous impact on a lot of these pastors and churches there. And here's a picture of a group of these men.

And I scratched out the name of the church just for their own safety. Just want to be careful because they are in a predominantly Islamic area. So anyway, but this is a picture of some of the men. And this is a picture of the inside of the building.

And Jose told me that the teaching has had a tremendous impact on many of these pastors. And so funny, he said, I hope you don't mind. And I said, oh, brother, praise the Lord. No, I don't mind at all.

I just, it made my day, just thrilled my soul to hear that. And again, this has nothing to do with me. It's just the power of the word of God. The word of God doing what God has decreed it to do. Per Isaiah 55, the word of God will not return to God void.

It will accomplish the task for which God has decreed it. And now jumping back to the Philippines, back to Manila, this is the first conference that we were at. And this was the largest conference, our first conference.

And here's a picture. Now, it kind of looks like that's a mirror in the back. But no, it's that actually that room extends way off into the back there. There's about 1100 people in this photograph. And so I was one of my two messages at this conference was on the history of the charismatic movement.

And I just talked about some of the generals, God's generals, that charismatics today look to and revere as some of their spiritual forefathers and foremothers. And I talked about Amy Semple McPherson and Katherine Kuhlman.

And as a minor part of my presentation, I simply made the comment that if you know, both of these women claim to be pastors. And I said, if you go to a church pastored by a woman, then you have neither a pastor nor do you have a church.

And I briefly talked about 1 Timothy 3, qualifications for an elder, that an elder is to be the husband of one wife. And I said, ladies, you can't be the husband of one wife. God, we are of equal value before God as men and women, but we do have different roles.

And God has ordained it that men are to be the spiritual leaders in both the home and the church. And women cannot be pastors. And so it wasn't a major point. I just spent one or two minutes on it. And what I didn't know is that in the back of this room, there apparently was a group of female pastors.

And a man came up to me a couple of days later. He said, Justin, when you were teaching, he said there was a group of female pastors there in the back. And one of them was convicted by what you said, the truth that you presented.

And she resigned. I mean, like immediately she resigned her role as pastor of the church that she was at. The word of God prevailed upon her and she did what you would expect a Christian to do. When you see the truth from God's word, you bend the knee to that truth.

And so she resigned. And praise the Lord, you know, that's evidence of a regenerate heart. So, you know, stuff like that. So all of this to say, dear ones, is when we obey the commands of Scripture, when we mark those who are teaching contrary doctrine, when we expose the evil deeds of darkness, when we call out false teaching, false theology, false doctrine, false teachers, false prophets.

When we do these things that Scripture commands us to do, it will bear good fruit. To the betterment of those people who hear it and ultimately for the glory of Christ. So all of this to encourage you, yes, judge, just don't judge hypocritically, judge with righteous judgment.

It's the most loving thing that you can do for someone. If you want to hate someone, see that they are in error and say nothing about it. Just leave them in that error. But if you truly love someone, love them enough to tell them the truth.

It is not up to us how that truth is received, but it is up to us to communicate it. Speak the truth, speak it in love, per Ephesians 4 .15, but speak it nonetheless. You do the right thing before God, trust God for the results, and it will bear fruit for the glory of Christ.

Okay, dear ones, thank you very much for joining me. Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.