Dogs & Hogs - [Matthew 7:6-12]

What would you say if I said to you this morning, after the wonderful baptisms we've had, wonderful music, singing, scripture reading, God's told me this morning not to preach. He's going to give me a pression, and he said, the people don't need preaching now.

What would you do? I hope you would say, you don't need an impression, Pastor Mike, to preach. You need to obey the scriptures, and the scriptures say when the saints get together, that people are supposed to preach the word.

The Word of God and Expository Preaching

So why don't you take your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7, and even though we've had a wonderful worship experience so far, it never gets better than when we hear from God, through a sinful and frail messenger, yes, but still, through that messenger, the holy, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient word of God.

We come to God now and say, teach us through your word. Lord, you make us more like Christ, through your word preached, as your spirit applies it. You make us say no to sin more. You make us better husbands, and wives, and parents, as you shape us and mold us.

You take some of the pruning shears through the word, and you cut, and you shear, to create this wonderful, holy bride for Christ Jesus. And that's what we do as we march through the Bible. I don't know if you're a visitor today, but if you are, here's what we do.

We just pick a book of the Bible, Matthew, this particular case, and we just keep preaching verse, by verse, by verse. I would never pick these verses today to preach from, if I weren't underneath this sequential, consecutive preaching style of ministry.

We don't want to have a pastor who's always got a hobby horse. We want to know what Jesus said, and wouldn't you want to know what he said in total? Wouldn't you hate it if you said, well, I only get to hear from these sections over here, some kind of cafeteria Christianity.

And so today, we don't want to do that. We're in Matthew chapter 7, what's called the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5, 6, and 7, our own Lord Jesus preaching. And we come up to chapter 7, and I think we'll review verses 1 to 5, and then we'll finish at verse 12 today.

I am bound and determined by elder decree to finish the Sermon on the Mount by the time I go to California for vacation. A little exaggeration, I'm not under that decree, but I'm trying to finish by the end of vacation time.

Then we'll come back and we'll look at 2 John, 3 John, maybe Philemon, and then 1 Corinthians in the fall. At least that's the tentative plan. When I was a kid, I would watch tightrope walkers. You ever seen a tightrope walker at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus?

These days, they don't tightrope walk very much. They have men called Spider-Man, and they climb up 90 stories up the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower, and that's a little more extreme. But when I was growing up, there were tightrope walkers, and sometimes they would actually ride a bicycle up the rope, and they would put a long kind of bar to help stabilize themselves, and they could go over things in amazing fashion over Niagara Falls.

I don't know if you remember the Walinda Brothers, but the Walinda Brothers had the highest distance on high wire, Guinness Book of World Records, and they would balance themselves on this rope with good stability.

Today, we're going to find that exact kind of tightrope walking found in the scriptures as we figure out this issue. How do we treat our Christian neighbor? We don't want to go overboard in judgmentalism, but we also don't want to walk around with our head in the sand, the proverbial sand, just being some kind of undisturbing, undiscerning blobs of goo.

The last couple of weeks, by the way, people have come up and said, Mike, I think you need to cut back on the caffeine a little bit. Two times in the last week, somebody has said that to me, so in your honor, if you've said that to me, I had an extra cup this morning, so we're ready.

Jesus has taught us in Matthew 5 and 6, how are we influenced by Pharisees, scribes, hypocrites, those that say live some kind of righteous life on the outside but not the inside. Now he moves in chapter 7 and says, I want to teach you how to relate to your neighbor, other Christians, and there are some minefields there to navigate through.

What I'm going to give you this morning in verses 1 through 12, four secure footholds that will help you navigate these tightrope walking courses called Christianity. How do we climb up Mount Manadnock without looking down, saying, I think I'll put my foot here, that rock looks stable over there, this little shelf doesn't look stable there, and I've got to walk through the middle of this, and so let me give you four footholds that will help you navigate the minefields of how do you love your fellow Christian.

Avoiding Sinful Judgmentalism

The first one is found in verses 1 through 5 as a review. Do not go overboard by being sinfully judgmental. Number one, the first foothold, don't go overboard by being sinfully judgmental. We live kind of in a cauldron of righteousness now.

We live in a pressure cooker of righteous demands. The king has come who himself is righteousness, and then he says, in my kingdom, you must live righteously. And as you're living in this righteous kingdom, if you're not careful, you become a fanatic.

You become a zealot. You go overboard. It's good to think critically. It's good to discern. It's good to say, I need to live righteous lives as Christians, but sometimes we go too far. James Boyce said, the devil is not able to destroy a Christian's witness by making him apathetic.

He will try to do it by making him a fanatic. There is a zeal that we can have that would be improper zeal, and we would be too judgmental. If this church has a problem, it's with this first foothold.

It's not the second foothold that we'll see soon. It's with this foothold. We've been taught the truth. We've been saved by God. We understand doctrine. We don't want to go overboard by being hypercritical and sinfully judgmental.

We are not the judge. We are to act merciful to people because we have received mercy. And so if you take a look at verse one, Jesus gives the principle. He says, do not judge so that you will not be judged.

He says, I don't want you to be unkind, unforgiving, unloving. And the problem with Bible interpretation comes with this word judge. It's got a wide range of meanings. It's got a very broad semantic range, and it could mean judgmentalism, hypercritical behavior, and it also could mean discern.

And so here, obviously in context, we see that he's trying to say, don't be judgmental. Don't judicially condemn. Don't in your mind condemn. You need to act in such a way that you don't teach others.

Act towards others in a harsh fashion. One man translated this verse as saying, do not criticize. Do not sit as judge upon another man's motives. Do not attempt to interpret the desires of his heart. And so Jesus says, we've learned a lot.

We live in this righteous kingdom, but don't act towards other people with some kind of pride. Be humble when you are judging the motives of other people. There's a judge, verse two. We saw that last week, for in the way you judge, you will be judged.

And by your standard of measure, your yardstick, it will be measured to you. I have a question. You can raise your hand if this is true of you. When was the last time, has anybody in this room ever prayed this prayer?

God, judge me as I judge my fellow men and women. But that's the passage's intent. God, treat me like I treat other people. No, we sinfully get skewed. And so Jesus, with tender, loving kindness, says, this is the way I want you to act.

Quick to call others to account, quick to receive the accounting of God. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Psalm 75, God is the judge. He puts down one, he exalts another. Psalm 82, arise, oh God, judge of the earth.

He is the lawgiver, he is the judge, we are not. And at best, we are equal with our other Christian saints, we are not better than them. We have received grace and we want to make sure we extend it. And then you see the funny thing that Jesus says in verse three, we looked at that last time as well.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, some little piece of sawdust or some little foreign piece of some kind of wood, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? You look at other people, but you yourself have been spiritually blinded.

You've got 2010 vision for other people's sins or alleged sins. But when it comes to your own eyes, you've broken out the lenses of the telescope and you can't see. And then he says in verse four, or how can you say to your brother?

You can say it, by the way, but it's incredible if you do. It's not that you can't say these words, but how could you say them with meaning, with credibility, without hypocrisy? 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.

It's like a mirage, it's some optical illusion. You can't see your own sin, but you're quick to see other people's sins. And what does Jesus say? Kind of calls people what he called the Pharisees. Kind of, he does.

You hypocrite. By the way, what's the word hypocrite in Greek? If the Greek word for judge is crino, the Greek word for hypocrite is hypercrino. You're a super criticizer, and you don't even do what you say.

You super criticizer. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. You're not really concerned with other people when you act like that.

You don't really love them. And in God's kingdom, righteousness and love rule. It's like some cat that goes running around and pounces on things. We walk around sometimes as Christians, and we're ready to pounce on anything they might say wrongly or inappropriately.

By the way, again, I think our church would struggle with this section. I have some advice, and I've talked to some of you about this last week even. If you're the kind of, especially a young man in the faith, doesn't matter how old you are, but young man in the faith, when you theologically blog and theologically email, argue all the time, I'm not saying it's a sin.

I'm not saying you have to stop that. But I think it just fuels this hypercritical kind of behavior. When I first got saved, I began to say, let's watch TBN, and we'll watch TBN. Funny how it's going to be called Trinity Broadcasting Network, and you don't have to even believe the Trinity to be on it, but that's another story.

Let's see how many seconds it takes before I can recognize heresy. Hey, it's a fun game. Come on over. Instead of watching the Celtics, let's watch TBN. In and of itself, it's not right, but show me someone who's maturing in the Christian faith, and I'll show you somebody that gets away from the theological blogs, that says it doesn't really help anyway, I can't see their face, nobody changes their mind, gets away from the TBN kind of day one, day start, day evening kind of critiquing.

You know what, I need to study what this is. I don't need to figure out all the cult stuff. Show me a new Christian, and the first thing they do is they want to study Revelation and the cults. And as time goes on, you go, you know, it's fine to know these things.

If you've got somebody in the Boston Church of Christ, then study it. But my personal advice as your pastor is, young men especially, if you're into this hypercritical kind of blog stuff, friends, at best you're wasting your time, and at worst, it's feeding this hyperjudgmentalism.

I could ask you the question as Donald Gray Barnhouse asked you. When you are blogging, is your main concern profound grief over sin, and being outraged that God's glory is being attacked because of the wrong view they have?

Or is it because you know they're wrong, and you want to prove to them that they're wrong? I think this is insightful. When our hearts are occupied with God's wondrous love, we remember that He loved us when we were unlovely, and some of us are not very lovely now.

We remember that He loved us when we were unlovable, and some of us are not very lovable yet. If He could do that when we were rebellious, and if that same love is now shed abroad in our hearts, we ought to be able to love those who are sinful, and unkind, and selfish.

That's what Jesus is after. Second foothold. That's just basically review. The second foothold for climbing up the spiritual Mount Manadnock of how do you interact with other Christians. Number one, don't go overboard by being hypercritical.

Number two, don't let the pendulum swing back past equilibrium, past Bible truth, and go into sinfully undiscerning. You are to discern. You are to inspect fruit. You are to examine everything carefully.

Here we are. Here's biblical truth six o 'clock, the equilibrium of the pendulum, and we go too far over in our sin and in our fallenness, and we go, you know what? We're hypercritical. Okay, I don't want to be hypercritical, and now we swing back over past biblical truth, and we go, oh, judge not lest you be judged.

Everything's fine. I can't judge. Some kind of theologically naive love blinders, and you just never can think. Jesus doesn't want us to do that. And so he says in verse six, by the way, before I read this verse, five verses to combat this error, one verse to combat this error.

Which one do you think's more prevalent in a Bible teaching church? Well, I can't just add up words, but there's a lot of emphasis to don't be hypercritical, and a little emphasis here on verse six. Do not give what is holy to dogs.

Do not throw your pearls before swine. There's a real danger when you're an undiscerning person. It's not good for you when you're not obeying Jesus, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you into pieces.

True or false, there's a time to be spiritually judging and discerning to the point where you have to say, that's a spiritual dog, or that's a spiritual hog. The answer is true. We, as Christians, don't want to swing so far from this, we can't ever judge anyone.

Certainly, we don't want self-righteous, sinful judging motives, unloving motives, more concerned about telling people how they're wrong versus the glory of God at stake. We don't want to do that. But if you're not careful, you're going to move over here into what I call kind of spiritual lobotomy land.

I watched a little show the other day on the pbs .org or com. When they did lobotomies, what they actually did, it is unbelievable. Cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex because you're a little depressed, you have schizophrenia, or you have moodiness, and they just couldn't think afterwards.

You must not be undiscerning. It's exactly what Jesus is saying. You've got to be discerning enough to go, that's a dog, and you've got to have enough examination in your mind to go, that's a hog, that's a pig.

Well, what particular context are we looking at? There's a time when you take the riches of Christ Jesus and salvation, and you're presenting the gospel to someone, and you're preaching the gospel to someone, and they begin to curse at Jesus, and swear at God, and say things about our Lord that are unrepeatable.

You should say to yourself, you know what? The fields are ripe for harvest. There's another place for me to go to. If it wasn't for the grace of God, I'd be saying the same thing, but I will not give you this treasure, and I will discern in my mind, based on Scripture, who you are, and what you are, and what you're doing with Jesus, and I'm not going to give you any more Bible truth, because Jesus tells me not to.

When's the last time you said to yourself, I can't give you the Bible anymore, because you just cursed Jesus' name? Now, you go, what do you mean, dog? This is kind of like some nice little, some kind of, I don't know, labradoodle, or something, nice little kind of, no, maybe they aren't so nice.

Some sweet little chihuahua. Oh, they're like some little, some kind of like little Jack Russell. I have to discern that they're a little Jack Russell. Is that what we mean by dogs? If you do a little study sometime, do a little canine theology study in the Bible, and you will not come up with sweet, lick your feet, jump boy, roll over, bang your head, you're dead.

You're not going to find that. What you're going to find is vicious, snarling, dirty, unclean, and if God really, really, really wanted to judge you, he'd have dogs eat you. They were unclean. They were despised.

One man said they had burrs clinging to their filthy coats as they foraged for food in savage packs. Short of some kind of sheep dog, these things were vicious and diseased. Probably all kinds of tape worms and other kind of worms and horrible things.

And you mean to tell me you're going to look at a person and you go, well, you know, judge not lest you be judged, and no, let me tell you more about Jesus. And they're saying, I hate Jesus, curse Jesus, Jesus doesn't exist, Jesus was this, Jesus was that.

Everything that Hollywood says about him, there's a time to go, you know what? If I was a Jew and I had a sacrifice, I'd give some to God and be a sweet aroma to God. I'd have some that I would take home and eat.

I'd give some to the priest, but I would not go outside and say, here you go, some kind of mauling, vicious, ravenous dogs, I'm going to give you the sacrifice. A Jew would never do that with a sacrifice, and you are never to do that with the riches of Christ to a dog.

They're contemptible, scavengers, and you have to have enough discernment when you're preaching the gospel that if these people don't want it, fine, be patient and continue to preach the Bible. If they become antagonistic and they begin to say things that they ought not to have, you need to say, that person is a spiritual dog, and I'm not going to preach to them anymore.

Implying that you have to have enough wherewithal to go, this is a dog, this is a sheep, this is a goat, this is a hog, you have to figure it out, and if you thought dogs were bad, how about hogs? Why is the sermon today called Hogs and Dogs?

I don't know, it just seemed to rhyme. Swine, before we think about biblical swine, don't say to yourself, oh yeah, I saw a little study on those, and people have those nice little house pet dogs, I mean, house pet pigs, little pot belly pigs, and you can kind of train them, and they're smarter than dogs, and they kind of run around, hear a little pot belly, come on, it's not that kind.

You can imagine, when dogs and hogs are mentioned in scripture in the New Testament, let me give you another verse, 2 Peter 2 .22, the dog returns to its own vomit, while it's hot, I might add, just to show you how bad they are, and the sow, after she's bathed herself, only to wallow in the mud again.

These aren't just physically unclean, although they are, they're what? Spiritually unclean. If you're a Jew, you don't say, I think I'm going to have a bunch of pigs in my house. I think I'm going to train them, and they're going to do pig circus tricks, and then I'm going to domesticate them, and then I'll eat them later.

What did you do if you were a Jew? I don't want any swine around. They foraged, lots of these swine back in those days would be like wild boars, and they were mean, they'd do horrible things. And so what does Jesus say?

If you are undiscerning, if you go too far away from the judge not lest you be judge side, you're going to do what? Matthew chapter 7 verse 6, you're going to give the holy gospel to dogs, and you're going to throw pearls before swine, and then you know what they're going to do?

They're going to go, oh, there's a pearl. But they're not going to say it's a pearl, they're going to go, oh, it's an acorn, or some kind of little pea. It's some kind of thing I can run over there and eat, and they're going to wallow over there to get ready to eat it, and then it's not going to be good, it's going to be a pearl, and then they're going to try to gore you with their tusks.

He says, you don't do that. You don't take something that's hard to get, precious and valuable, and throw it to people who curse and growl. The word pearl is where we get the word Margaret. You don't take a pretty pearl found in Persia or India and throw it out to some dog or hog.

See, that's pretty harsh. Jesus even did that. Listen to this, Luke 23, now Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus for he'd wanted to see him for a long time, because he had been hearing about him, and he was hoping to see some signs performed by him, and Herod questioned Jesus at some length, but Jesus answered him nothing, not one word from Jesus.

Matthew chapter 15, let them alone, they're blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, they'll both fall into the pit, no more. Same philosophy when Jesus says, I'm done doing miracles for them. When people mock and ridicule and deride Jesus Christ, you quit preaching to them.

If they deride you, I'd say keep preaching to them. Some people say, well, this means you should never give the gospel to Gentiles, because Gentiles were also called dogs. No, it doesn't mean that. Some people say you should never, the didache was a very early letter, it wasn't in the Bible, but it has lots of biblical things in it, it's around 100 AD.

They said, let no one eat or drink of the Eucharist except those baptized in the name of the Lord. As regards this, the Lord has said, give not that which is holy unto dogs. So if you're not a baptized believer, and you take a Eucharist, you're like a dog.

It doesn't have anything to do with it. It has to do with this, Proverbs 23, 9, do not speak to a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words. Proverbs 9, do not rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you.

We don't sit back and go, wow, you know, I was so ballistic and so offensive personally that they're starting to call Jesus names and become kind of self-satisfied and smug. That's not what it's about.

We are to use discretion. We are to thank God that if it wasn't for his grace, we'd be doing the same thing. And by the way, at the end of the day, God will take care of that person, won't he? God will take care of that woman, won't he?

Voltaire, I don't know if you've ever read the book by Voltaire called Candide. It's basically how God isn't sovereign. And here is an example of a man who would be a spiritual dog and swine. When somebody was preaching the gospel of Jesus to Voltaire, he said this about Jesus, curse that wretch.

He later bragged, 20 years of Christianity, in 20 years, Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took the 12 apostles to rear. True or false, God isn't mocked. And after Voltaire died, they took his house, which was known for anti-Christian literature.

And a few years later, it became the house holding the Geneva Bible Society. When he was dying, Voltaire said, quote, I'm abandoned by God and man. I will give you half of what I'm worth if you will give me six months life.

Then I shall go to hell and you'll go with me, oh Christ, oh Jesus Christ. And a nurse who was helping him during his horrible death, she said it was so horrible, she wrote these words, quote, I would not want to see another infidel die for all the wealth in Europe.

The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few, so if somebody is going to curse Jesus, move on. Third foothold, foothold number one, don't go overboard. And be sinfully judgmental. Don't go overboard the other way and be sinfully undiscerning.

Persistent Prayer for Discernment

Number three, your response should be, how do I navigate? I was reading about how they actually would tightrope walk and all the mechanics and physics of it and how they would start by putting the rope between the toe and all these kind of things.

What do I do? What do you do if you go, I can't go overboard this way, I can't go overboard this way, help. You should be saying, help, I don't know what to do, help me. So instead of asking me for help, which I don't think you're doing, but instead of asking generically for help, if you have a hard time saying, I don't know whether to go here or here, how do I straddle the middle and be at equilibrium at the Bible truth, what would you do?

If somebody came to you, I'm having a trouble between judgmentalism and undiscernment, what do I do? What would you tell them to do? Well, I'd keep reading, that'd be good. Help. Who's adequate for these things?

What would you tell them to do? Pray. And that's exactly what we have here. Number three, instead of giving up hope, because these first two are so humanly impossible, persistently pray to your heavenly father and he will give you discernment.

Some think this is just thrown in randomly. Ask, seek, knock. Somehow Jesus didn't finish the Lord's prayer, the disciples prayer in chapter six. And so now we're kind of a new section prayer. This isn't a new section.

This is perfectly placed right here. It's not unrandom. It's not unrelated. I mean, excuse me, it's not random. Verse seven, ask, it'll be given to you. Seek, you'll find. Knock and it will be open to you.

God, I've got specks in my eyes. I can't figure out who a dog and a hog is. Would you help me? You think God would be pleased to answer that? God, I seem to be hypercritical. And then the next day I just seem to kind of live and let live.

Help. The Bible says, ask, seek and knock. This is perfect. This is just like James one. If you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Now let's pick it apart a little bit. Verse seven, ask, seek, knock. Some think there's some kind of progression.

More intensity, more eagerness, more striving. But if you're a Jew and you want to try to focus on something and emphasize it, you either say, ask, ask, ask. Or you say, ask, knock, seek. You either say, holy, holy, holy.

Or you say, holy, separate, set apart. Jesus isn't saying, start a little bit and then if there's no answer, pray a little bit harder. Seek a little bit more diligently. He's just saying, pray persistently.

And look at the promises in there. It will be given to you. You'll find. It will be open. God, I need help. Oh, sorry. Ask and it won't be given to you. Seek and you will never find. Knock and it will not be open to you.

Back again to, look at how good your father is. Your father's good. And in a Hebraic way he says, stand at the door of heaven and say, I'm like a beggar. I'm back to Matthew chapter 5. I'm poor in spirit and I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to discern. But I'd like to live in your kingdom, God, in an honoring way. So would you help me? Keep on asking is the Greek. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking. I'm like a beggar, God.

You're going to have to help me. I'm earnestly petitioning. I'm knocking. Open the door. And there's the promise. It'll be given, you'll find, it'll be open. If you're an immature Christian or you're a mature Christian, it's for you.

We're weak before God, but he's got plenty of grace. We know we have a need, but he's got spiritual wisdom to give. John Newton said, thou art coming to a king. Large petitions with thee bring. For his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much.

I said to myself this week, I don't know if I've ever prayed this prayer. God, I don't want to be hypercritical, and I don't want to be some kind of amorphous kind of undiscerning blob. Help me. I need to know how to walk right in the middle.

And then he plays, he doesn't really play, but just it's a word, to how great the Father is. Will he really answer me? Is that kind of a dumb question? Are there any dumb prayer requests when it comes to God with this?

Verse 9. What man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf, he gives him a stone? Oh, wait till you see this, buddies. Call all your friends over and you're sitting around working on your boat or car or something, and the kid says, you know, it's about three in the afternoon, Dad, and we didn't have any breakfast or any lunch, and you think I could have something to eat?

I've designed this perfect rock to look like a piece of bread back in the old days. He's going to go straight to the dentist after that. Mobsters love their children. Gang members love their children.

If an evil, depraved man will give his son bread, how much more will the Father give to those who say, I need help in this discernment? It's exactly what Jesus is doing. Remember when Satan in Matthew chapter 4 said, if you're the son of God, command these stones to become bread?

There's some kind of idea that these kind of look alike, a small stone and like a little loaf of bread back in those days. He's not going to deceive his child, even as a depraved man. Verse 10, second question.

I love Jesus's questions. Or if he asks for a fish, kind of another staple food, he will not give him a snake, will he? Now, here's the idea. It's not like that somehow somebody's eating an eel and it's cooked, but it's long and brown, and then the dad slips in some kind of poisonous snake, so when the kid gets ready to cut some of the eel, he eats that snake instead, and the snake bites him, and he's got poisonous venom in his system.

No. What Jew, who's not even God, would have a kid say, Dad, I'd like some food, and you'd go, You know what I'm going to do? Worse than poison of a snake, I'm going to take a snake that is unclean spiritually to the Jews, and I will ceremonially defile my kid.

I'll stain him spiritually. That's what I'll do. He wants something to eat. Didn't you ask me that yesterday and the day before? I think I've got something good for you, kid. I'm going to make you unholy by what the food you're going to eat.

He could have just said, You know, when it comes to food, he's going to slip in some kind of pork chop and call it lamb. Then here comes the killer. By the way, if you don't believe in total depravity, you better, because verse 11 incorporates depravity into the best thing a dad could ever do, take care of his kids.

Verse 11, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more? You'll have to underline those words. How much more? Back to God as a Father in the Sermon on the Mount.

How much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give what is good to those who ask Him? Now, just a quick note. Verse 11, Jesus did not say, If we then, being evil, What would be wrong with that? If we then, being evil.

Is Jesus evil? No, Jesus isn't evil. He's saying, If you're evil, I'm not evil. If you're evil and you give good things, how much more? It's an amazing thing. He uses this argument all the time. Earthly fathers give good things to their sons.

How much more will the Father? What is at stake is, What's your view of God? And if you're having a hard time on this earth, you go to God the Father. He's not vicious. He doesn't take glee in your mistakes.

And I love it. They didn't even tell me what to say, how to say it. Repeat these words. You're in a bind. You don't know how to walk through this life by loving your neighbors yourself. You say, Lord, help me.

And you don't just pray it one time. You pray it all the time. Number four. Fourth foothold, found in verse 12. When you don't know how to deal with people, and all else fails, employ the golden rule.

The Golden Rule and Loving Your Neighbor

How do we navigate in this world of loving our neighbor? Don't go overboard. Be judgmental. Don't go overboard the other way. Be undiscerning. Pray that God would help us. And finally, number four. You can tell it's all tied together.

This whole section's tied together because look at the golden rule, verse 12. In everything, therefore. What's the therefore, therefore? It's tying it up. Therefore, treat people the way you want them to treat you.

Not hypercritically. Not undiscerningly. If you were in sin, you'd want people to come to you for church discipline, wouldn't you? Treat them in the same way you want them to treat you. For this is the law and the prophets.

There's too much haze and fog for me to figure out what to do. I've been praying. And it's not like God answers me audibly, but I've been praying. I don't know what to do. Help, I'm at the end of my rope.

There's too many layers of this onion to unpeel. This is the fallback position. Do this. If I were them, I'd like to know how I would be treated. I'll treat them that way. Perfect. This sums up the law and the prophets.

This sums up Moses. This sums up the two great commandments. At least the second part, loving your neighbor as yourself. J .C. Ryle said, this truth, verse 12, settles a hundred different points. It prevents the necessity of laying down endless rules for their conduct in specific cases.

Can you imagine what to do with all the different things that might come up? No. We just know, back even to Leviticus 19, love your neighbor as yourself. Confucius even knew this. What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

But Jesus says it positively. The Apographa says, what thou thyself hatest, to no man do. So you say to yourself, I've got a situation here. I don't really know what to do. And so I'm going to ask myself a series of questions.